thor s
While deeply disturbing, it at least detaches itself slightly from its adapted material "Gūnjou". Which is commendable, but if anyone has read the material, you'd know that being a victim and making/being yourself a victim is at the core of this deeply depressing and crazy rollercoaster of a ride.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
10/09/23
Full Review
Daniela R
\LA MEJOR PELI DE NETFLUJZ
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
04/21/23
Full Review
Sara Helena A
not the big fan of movies that takes too long and with no plot. i readed the manga after i saw the movie and there was more plots but it was still not to my tast.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
08/08/22
Full Review
Audience Member
Love it....this is super
(18+)
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
02/07/23
Full Review
tess j
To start this off--it doesn't seem like a lot of reviewers have read the source material. I do not at all think that this discredits their opinion, I just want to discuss it for a bit since it's fundamental to this movie. It's a manga called Gunjo, (which I am about to shill for 6 paragraphs,) and it follows the same plot, albeit with differently arranged events and scenes, tweaked characters and relations, etc. It was written and illustrated by Nakamura Ching, who is a gay woman. The story revolves around a woman who is abused by her husband who asks a highschool friend of hers to kill her husband. This friend is a lesbian who is in love with the woman, and is constantly wrought by an unending loneliness. In my humble opinion, it is incredibly good. This translation of it into film is complicated, however.
I see a lot of people calling this movie male-gaze-y and lesbophobic, and while I do think the movie introduces some male gaze, I don't think that it's lesbophobic. Now, I'm not saying that a lesbian can't write something lesbophobic, or that a work adapted from a lesbian's writing can't be lesbophobic, I understand that it's possible. But, coming at this from a tried and true lesbian perspective, it doesn't fit the bill. Perhaps it is because of my knowledge of the manga that I'm able to read into the themes and whatever, but I think that the movie on its own still does some work to portray the big theme of the story, which is humanity. The movie isn't endeavoring to show what lesbians are like, it isn't trying to prove that lesbians are evil, it isn't trying to show a good relationship. It is trying to show how complicated and often miserable it is to be around people, to be alone, and to be a person yourself. Maybe Nakamura picked the premise out because it resonated in some way with her, maybe she didn't have a reason, I don't know. But what I do know is that it's just the plot, and it's not as deep as I think some people are trying to go with it. It isn't a work about sexuality, there's really no exploration there. Sex is pretty much always used in the film and manga alike to portray pain. No, I don't find it moral, and the film really likes to be gratuitously brutal with it, but I think it works. Since the movie isn't trying to prove what lesbians are like, or to show a healthy relationship, I think that it's okay--and maybe necessary--to have a lot of conflict surrounding sex, and that having this conflict in the way it is portrayed is not lesbophobic.
I used the word "gratuitously" when describing the brutality of sex in the movie, and I want to elaborate on that. It was necessary to show sex with men as brutal for the plot to make sense, considering that it's about difficult relationships, among other things. But, this movie is really a fan of the long take. Sometimes I like it, other times I really do not. For example, I liked that long take when Rei and Nanae were in the rain, when it was just Rei awake. In that instance, a long take conveys isolation, stillness, and an aching. A long take I didn't like was in the second scene, when Rei is having sex with Kotaro (which you could argue was rape, conversation for another day though) and it just kept holding on that same shot for an eternity. It made me want to crawl out of my skin. This scene was never fully portrayed in the manga, but in the movie it is, to bring the word back again, gratuitous. Artistically, I can't argue against the fact that it partially works. My disgusted reaction was probably partially intended, and the fact that it's a long take cleans it of any sensuality someone could attempt to find in it. It is distant, unenjoyable, lonely, a scene to be looked at in shock. The sheer amount of time dedicated to it, though, I think was too much. The scene drags on and on, and the entire time I was just begging for it to end. I hadn't signed up for this, I had signed up for my beloved Gunjo, which I suppose was my mistake considering that it's only based on it. You're not supposed to have fun reading Gunjo, and you're not supposed to have fun watching Ride or Die. In fact, both are intended to be uncomfortable and frustrating at times, since that's how real relationships are. Gunjo does this carefully, pulling and releasing tension until the incredible, hard-earned conclusion. Ride or Die tries to do this, and it does make a valiant effort, but it ends up pulling more than a few muscles, and whenever someone was having sex with a man (which was thankfully infrequent) I felt like I was being beaten over the head with one of those Nerf bats by an 8 year old, asking me if I get it yet.
Remember when I said that I understand the feelings of the reviewers who haven't read the manga? If you've read the manga, you have a cheat code for the relationships. You understand the intricacies that Nakamura so masterfully portrayed in the manga, and the movie just struggles to get it across in a lot of places. To me, it feels like a movie based on a work by a woman, acted in by women, and written and directed by people who do not understand women. So, it ends up being that all of the complicated events are present, but as the subtext is not understood, it isn't incorporated. If you read the manga, you get the subtext through just the events. If you haven't, it's incredibly hard to get. That's where the push and pull of the relationship struggles to feel rewarding, and where a lot of people probably feel like it's tiresome or going in circles. Perhaps this is wishful thinking or just naïve, but I feel like the pacing could maybe have been fixed if a woman directed it. This is only because I think that in structuring a story like this that has so much to do with female relationships and female loneliness, you have a big advantage if you're a woman.
I believe that the pivotal lesbian experience is terrible loneliness. Feeling like you're losing touch with people, feeling unlovable, feeling like an idiot, feeling disgusting. Relationships between two feminine people, especially women, are in nearly every case prone to extreme intensity, and are very difficult to end and to get over. This is why Rei was so willing to drop everything to help Nanae, as she felt that she barely had anything in the first place. She was born into great wealth, raised in a whole family, but was plagued by such an intense loneliness that she had built Nanae up as her only aspiration. Not for any deep reason, just that she found Nanae cute. She doesn't expect love from Nanae, instead thinking that she is content just having that direction, that impossible hope for a love that she can never have, because Nanae is straight. There is nothing she can do to be desired. This isn't a comp-het story, this isn't a story about love, it is a story about loneliness and how people live with it. Nanae herself is just as lonely as Rei, having been subject to physical abuse her entire life, suffering financially until obtaining a loveless marriage with a man who did not respect her as a human, then being left utterly void of a home after Rei killed him, a home that she maybe never even had. It is sad, it doesn't feel good, it's not fun. It's hard to sit through an experience filled with arguing, crying, screaming, abuse, fear, tension, and death. There's enough of that in the real world, why should I want to watch a movie with all of it? Shouldn't media be an escape from reality? It can be, and often should be, but I don't think it should always be an escape. Fun isn't the only thing art can or should elicit, and in that way, Ride or Die becomes a critique of modern media itself. To be completely honest, I have no idea if it was intentional or not.
I really did like this movie. Some of the adaptational changes annoyed me, as I found them to be important to the theming of the story, but different people will inevitably see the parts of a story in different ways, and will portray them as such. While it's not as salient and not as good as the manga, it still has a lot going for it. There's a lot of passion and vitriol in the performances. I am a confident defender of Mizuhara Kiko's acting. Again, maybe it's because I love the source material so much, but she really brought the character of this strange, violently emotional girl to life in an extremely bizarre and enjoyable way. She does a fantastic job of portraying manic excitement, and I think she does a good job of portraying most everything else. The cinematography was good, especially the colors. The glow of the clubs and lights of the city, leading into the rain, and then to Nanae's old apartment. Each one is given a distinct feeling to help build emotion. The colors and lighting always made sense and enhanced the experience. Shots were generally composed well and had a good variety in the camera distance and length. I could do without some of the handheld shaky-cam, but in the event the scene called for it, it was there and added to the experience. The ending is alright, although I admittedly think that Gunjo's ending is the perfect ending for the story, and the movie robs the characters of a bit of their autonomy. Regardless, it still makes sense and is satisfactory. I am refraining from explaining much more about either of these endings, because I think that you should read the manga and watch the movie, even if manga isn't your type of thing. Regardless, if you're up for it, this movie tells a brutal, frustrating, disgustingly gorgeous story about human emotions and loneliness, and whether it gets it right or not I think it's a valuable work of art.
Rated 3/5 Stars •
Rated 3 out of 5 stars
03/31/23
Full Review
Audience Member
It's like someone created a movie out of your lesbian fantasies. It's full of drama and lots of sexy scenes. I would only recommend it if you are a lesbian romance fanatic, otherwise, it can get boring at times.
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
02/07/23
Full Review
Read all reviews
Post a rating
>
