We started our first-of-the-year movie marathon with a short sprint of 2 movies in 2 days. Yesterday it was Vice and today we saw The Favourite. The acting was terrific, but both were ultimately unsatisfying to me.
Each bio-pic was an interesting meditation on power, exploring in particular strategies that women have historically had to resort to in order to gain power. As such, Amy Adams, Rachel Weisz, and Emma Stone portray characters who are ruthless and manipulative, understandable, but unlikable. Although they approach power acquisition differently than an equally ambitious male counterpart might, all three women still define power in the traditional, zero-sum way, where to have power you have to take it from someone else and hold on to it.
It's fair to argue that all three characters were simply making the best of a bad situation, but I guess that's where the movies fell short for me. I prefer my heroes to fight injustice by reimagining the corrupt status quo.
Each bio-pic was an interesting meditation on power, exploring in particular strategies that women have historically had to resort to in order to gain power. As such, Amy Adams, Rachel Weisz, and Emma Stone portray characters who are ruthless and manipulative, understandable, but unlikable. Although they approach power acquisition differently than an equally ambitious male counterpart might, all three women still define power in the traditional, zero-sum way, where to have power you have to take it from someone else and hold on to it.
It's fair to argue that all three characters were simply making the best of a bad situation, but I guess that's where the movies fell short for me. I prefer my heroes to fight injustice by reimagining the corrupt status quo.
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