The Woman (2011)

Directed By: Lucky McKee
Starring: Angela Bettis, Pollyanna McIntosh, Sean Bridgers, Lauren Ashley Carter, Carlee Baker, Zach Rand

One of the surest signs that I’m having an anxiety attack is when my legs start to shiver uncontrollably. During the climax of Lucky McKee’s The Woman---my legs would not stop shaking. I blame the drinks I had before the film on my sudden bout of nausea that followed soon after, but my shaky legs were genuine. The Woman is the craziest thing I have seen in a very, very long time and my legs can prove it.

It took 2 years for Lucky Mckee to complete The Woman, based off the novel that he and Jack Ketchum penned. The story follows the Cleek family after the father Chris Cleek captures a wild woman in the woods and chains her up in his basement. In his sick and twisted mind, the father believes that he along with the rest of his family, will do their part to tame the wild woman and turn her into something civilized.

You may remember us talking about The Woman a few months ago when we reported about an angry film goer’s rant after a screening of the film at the Sundance Film Festival. The themes and weight of the film’s content were apparently too much for the gentleman in question, who claimed that the film was inhumane and that it should be burned. Originally, some people raised eyebrows believing that The Woman was just another shocking gross out film of disturbing proportions.

I’m sure I won’t be the first to tell you this but The Woman is not even close to those descriptions. Gross, shocking, disturbing yes--but The Woman is so much more than all of the those things. I often talk about my problem with films that do not commit to their story and that do not push things as far as they need to go in order to tackle the themes they’ve proposed. The Woman however is one of the most committed films that I have ever seen. It goes to places that I did not anticipate and places that I didn’t plan on seeing ever in my life.

The film is carefully crafted with the regular touches of McKee who seems to have finally made the film that he wanted to make. It takes its time and never feels like it’s holding anything back or that it’s trying to be shocking. It looks and feels 100% natural which is an usual statement to make for a film about a really fucked up guy and his fucked up agenda. There was an usual tone in the film which McKee brands as his signature quirkiness that always pops up unexpectedly in his writing. These fleeting moments of laughter and effortless comedic timing however seemed to make the film more disturbing than they make it easier to swallow.

The acting talents of the cast were exceptional and even surprising at times. Angela Bettis, who plays Belle Cleek, was as expected, breathtakingly perfect. Her acting ability never fails to wow me and this was no exception. On screen it felt like she had aged 30 years before my eyes as she absorbed an entire lifetime of horror and dismay at the hands of her deranged husband. It’s almost as if you can feel her sickness and most importantly her tiredness.

Sean Bridgers plays our central antagonist Chris Cleek and the man is incredibly convincing. He has flawless comedic timing and at times seems to represent a creepy and satanic version of Will Ferrell.

My favorite role and performance however came in the form of Lauren Ashley Carter who played the eldest daughter Peggy. A tremendous talent and surely one that will take off in no time, Carter's performance is one that will stick with you.

And of course I cannot talk about The Woman without mentioning the woman herself, Pollyanna McIntosh. I joked with my friends upon leaving the theater that I would be having nightmares about her terrifyingly glaring face and I was right. When I closed my eyes before bed last night, the only thing I could see were her eyes. Every time the woman was on camera I got nervous. I even pulled the old, "I have to look for something in my purse" gag a few times in order to avoid the possible threat of peeing my pants.

McIntosh’s woman does not fuck around. She takes the character to places that I didn’t realize were possible without the aid of heavy duty makeup and perhaps some digitized animal noises--but she does it. I reached a point about 20 minutes into the film where I literally could no longer look at her face, in fear that it would come out of the screen and bite my face off. I am not lying when I tell you that she is the scariest fucking thing I have seen in a long, long time.

The effects are all practical and convincing---maybe even a little too convincing at times. The sound effects are cringe worthy and the sound (providing you view the film on a sound system that works) is a character in and of itself. The film’s soundtrack is completely original and made for the film. McKee pointed out during the Q&A that the film was edited with the songs in mind--think Fantasia but you know...not. It created a few highly interesting and thought provoking scenes. It was different--and while some moments may have not worked as well as they could have, overall it was an effective tool. There’s a lot of juxtaposition going on and the songs and the images are matched up flawlessly. The Woman is a film that was edited, and pieced together with the utmost care-- and you can certainly tell.

My one gripe is a minor one, but I can’t help feeling curious about how the woman was able to cut her bangs in such an exact way. One of the audience members also asked how she was able to shave her armpits---an astute observation and a question that Lucky had apparently not been asked before. It’s somewhat true though--you do picture her to be much, much hairier.

One other minor thing was that a few of the acting talents--namely, the teachers in the school-- were considerably weaker than the rest of the cast. Their dialogue did not come off as naturally as the rest of the dialogue in the film and it was a bit jarring. Nothing that upsets the overall film, but still something that I did notice.

So what else can I tell you about The Woman? I feel as if I could go on forever. As one of my good friends put it this morning, the film “woke up his brain” and he couldn’t be more right. It’s like ever since I walked out of that movie theater last night--my head has not been able to get what I saw out of my mind. I tried reading a book before bed and got about 2 pages in before I realized that I had been thinking about the film for the entire time. I fell asleep thinking about it, dreamt about it and even woke up thinking about it.

I’m being truthful when I tell you that it’s difficult for me to review a film that I feel I need to fully digest for about another year. What can I really tell you about The Woman? I still don’t know. It seems to travel on a constant road of surprise. With every twist and turn in the story I found myself getting more and more surprised. The climax is one of the most unforgettable scenes I have ever seen in my life. I felt simultaneously like crying, puking and laughing. It’s gory as hell, distressing as fuck and does not even for one minute back down. It doesn’t ask you to think, rather it forces you to. It makes you challenge so many different things at once; filmmaking, life, the meaning of being civilized and the idea of mercy to name just a few.

It’s also surprinsgly a subtle film. I had anticipated a world of disturbing moments similar to something you would see in A Serbian Film but I was shocked to find that those anticipated moments of rape and defiling were more implied than they were shoved in our faces. This is I think one of the key things about The Woman. A film that truly disturbs you and a film that is truly subversive shouldn’t have to shove the bad things in your face. The truly disturbing aspect of The Woman is the way that it makes you feel and how it affects you and that is the difference between something that is aiming to be disturbing and something that just is disturbing. The film does not pull any punches. You will not find jump scares, or horror cliches. What you will find is a film that is honestly trying to tell us something and a film that does not care if it makes any money at the box office. These are the kinds of films that we need more of--because they remind us that filmmaking is an art and not a business.

If you ever have the chance to see this film please do yourself a favor and see it. Lucky McKee is one of the most intriguing directors of our time and his films deserve to be seen. You may not like the way the film makes you feel, you may feel as I did like I was going to be sick, or you may find that it was one of the most entertaining experiences you have ever had. However you choose to view it, whatever you choose to take away from it you will at least realize that you’ve never ever seen anything like it in your life.

Rating: (4.5 out of 5):