zach_schonfeld’s review published on Letterboxd:
Random notes:
• Went in blind, knowing virtually nothing of the plot, because my mom said I should see it that way. She was right. Haynes reveals the backstory gradually and creepily, little unsettling details worming their way into the barbecue, until you piece it all together. Compelling as hell. I like how Elizabeth (and we, by extension) learns a lot through what is essentially investigative reporting.
• Natalie Portman gives a great performance in the category of "Highly Successful Actress Playing a Slightly Less Successful Actress" (see also: Scarlett Johansson in Marriage Story, Penélope Cruz in Broken Embraces, Catherine O'Hara in For Your Consideration)
• The story reminded me a lot of Almodóvar, particularly in the blurring between performance and real and the way the past hangs over the present. But the Almodóvar version would be brighter and more lurid, with recurring flashbacks to Gracie and Joe's scandal. The Haynes version is patiently, quietly poisonous.
• The high school drama scene reminded me somehow of De Niro and Juliette Lewis in Cape Fear, which I guess is thematically appropriate. I love how Elizabeth's impassioned soliloquy about sex scenes hangs over the film's eventual sex scene, making you wonder if she is feigning pleasure or feigning the lack of it.
• I can understand how being flirted with by Natalie Portman might make you start questioning your whole life and marriage (see also: Jonathan Safran Foer).
• Got secondhand ASMR from watching Julianne Moore do Natalie Portman's makeup.
• Interesting parallel between this ending and Killers of the Flower Moon's ending—both deliberately hokey codas that explore the line between dramatization and kitsch and wink at the idea that any mass-media commodification of tragic events is inherently suspect... including the movie you just watched.
• Overheard after the film: "I guess the hunting thing was, like... she's a predator or something?" (Not bad tbh.)
