Review

  • Warning: Spoilers
    I was attracted to this movie because Netflix claimed it was about multiple personalities (Dissociative Identity Disorder), a topic which is close to home for me. What I found in this movie was not DID, but whatever it was, it was still carried out very artistically and beautifully. The movie is a cinematic artwork, not necessarily a traditional story, and it should be seen that way if it is to be appreciated. The pathology of the main character was very intriguing, but more or less metaphorical in practice. If anything, this girl's costumes are out of a desperate need to escape and be something she isn't - which is partially where DID comes from, but the real process is much less conscious or controlled. She is a girl ravaged by her past and doomed to walk the earth as a husk, a shadow, looking for a genuine and safe body to inhabit. Things like dissociation and depression are very similar in this, but not as artistic, and that's what I mean when I say the character is metaphorical - she's not meant to be taken literally, but rather artistically, through her costumes and her strange relationships. In the end, she does find a kind of peace, but never in a way the viewer would expect, and this too is metaphorical - coping and recovering is a violent process that may require one to metaphorically murder the things that hurt you most. Amy here simply gives us an artistic visual of that. This movie is not anything like what I expected, but I still very much enjoyed it. I always love things that force me to think.