Solver (2017)
This post is all spoilers all the time. I am going to spoil the whole movie. This movie depends on suspense, so if you intend to see it, do not read these spoilers. If you're "meh" about it, then by all means, proceed.
Solver's plot is a lot like a video game in two specific ways: firstly, it's a series of puzzles much like any of the MYST series, or any other adventure puzzle solver (Rhem, Obduction, The Island of Dr. Brain, etc.), and secondly, there's a princess to rescue. This is not a trope that I love. In this opinion, me and Feminist Frequency are totally synchronized. Although the cast includes some racial diversity, the two main characters are young, thin, and white. *shrug*
My real gripe is about the ending. The whole plot revolves around a search for a mind-control device, both by the main characters who are enjoying solving the puzzles that his dead grandfather left in an old cabin, and the baddie (and his two female accomplices) who wants to take over the tri-state area, so to speak, Satan-style. It's simplistic and contrived, but watchable, up until the last few moments.
"I still don't get how you got my landlord to sell the shop back to me so cheap," she says, smooching him and hopping into his car.
"An old negotiating trick I learned from my grandfather," he replies. We know what that means, but just in case we don't, there's a longish shot of the mind control device in the backseat of his vintage clunker. Meanwhile, the girl does not think about this or its implications at all: she's just grateful, and rubs her smoochy-smooch lips like it was the most romantic kiss ever.
I think about this, and I am feeling annoyance and lots of negative things. There is an eternal truth that this film denies, and it is one that I feel deeply and strongly about. It's apparently a thing I once went to war over, even against friends and family. Mind control is evil. It is not justified by the ends even for a single moment. (Salesmen and Missionaries, I'm looking at you.) Anything that undermines another person's eternal right to choice and agency is evil. The most evil.
I get it. It's difficult to see people we love making dangerous or detrimental decisions. But they get to make them all the same. Children, parents, siblings, lovers, friends, and total strangers all get to make their own decisions. We don't refrain from deciding for them because it's simply impossible: we refrain because it is evil.
And so when the main character of a film rides off into the sunset smirking that he now has a huge advantage over the rest of humanity because he can control them, I am appalled. It isn't a "win" because he's the "good guy." Nobody has that right, and just the act of having it makes him the bad guy. He has joined the dark side. It's not cute. Even if they were resisting the cliche of "nobody should have this technology" nihilism, they are wrong to do it. The cliche exists for a reason: because people have thought this through, and we all know that it is correct. Nobody gets to take away our agency. Ever.
Yes, I have strong feelings about this, and this film struck a nerve. I am twenty kinds of biased. But since this is my blog, I get to be.
Solver's plot is a lot like a video game in two specific ways: firstly, it's a series of puzzles much like any of the MYST series, or any other adventure puzzle solver (Rhem, Obduction, The Island of Dr. Brain, etc.), and secondly, there's a princess to rescue. This is not a trope that I love. In this opinion, me and Feminist Frequency are totally synchronized. Although the cast includes some racial diversity, the two main characters are young, thin, and white. *shrug*
My real gripe is about the ending. The whole plot revolves around a search for a mind-control device, both by the main characters who are enjoying solving the puzzles that his dead grandfather left in an old cabin, and the baddie (and his two female accomplices) who wants to take over the tri-state area, so to speak, Satan-style. It's simplistic and contrived, but watchable, up until the last few moments.
"I still don't get how you got my landlord to sell the shop back to me so cheap," she says, smooching him and hopping into his car.
"An old negotiating trick I learned from my grandfather," he replies. We know what that means, but just in case we don't, there's a longish shot of the mind control device in the backseat of his vintage clunker. Meanwhile, the girl does not think about this or its implications at all: she's just grateful, and rubs her smoochy-smooch lips like it was the most romantic kiss ever.
I think about this, and I am feeling annoyance and lots of negative things. There is an eternal truth that this film denies, and it is one that I feel deeply and strongly about. It's apparently a thing I once went to war over, even against friends and family. Mind control is evil. It is not justified by the ends even for a single moment. (Salesmen and Missionaries, I'm looking at you.) Anything that undermines another person's eternal right to choice and agency is evil. The most evil.
I get it. It's difficult to see people we love making dangerous or detrimental decisions. But they get to make them all the same. Children, parents, siblings, lovers, friends, and total strangers all get to make their own decisions. We don't refrain from deciding for them because it's simply impossible: we refrain because it is evil.
And so when the main character of a film rides off into the sunset smirking that he now has a huge advantage over the rest of humanity because he can control them, I am appalled. It isn't a "win" because he's the "good guy." Nobody has that right, and just the act of having it makes him the bad guy. He has joined the dark side. It's not cute. Even if they were resisting the cliche of "nobody should have this technology" nihilism, they are wrong to do it. The cliche exists for a reason: because people have thought this through, and we all know that it is correct. Nobody gets to take away our agency. Ever.
Yes, I have strong feelings about this, and this film struck a nerve. I am twenty kinds of biased. But since this is my blog, I get to be.
Comments
Post a Comment