*****SPOILERS BELOW******* READ AT YOUR OWN RISK********
Well, thanks to Joho above my wife and I just watched it. I'm not sure how I feel, so I'll work it out here. Well, I know how I feel about Joho sharing it, she's the freaking best. :)
First, my wife heard the creator of this movie on a podcast recently. He doesn't like the ex-JW community and that we're too bitter. He looked into it a bit and peaced out on it and wanted to go on with his life.
I feel that it's reflected in this movie. He paints and ugly picture of life both in and out of the cult. It seems to me like the creator of this movie hasn't worked through his own stuff yet and still paints an ugly picture of life outside. It's like he still sees "worldly" people like the JWs teach. They were all fucking anything that moves, drunks, really none of them seemed to have many good qualities. I think he paints a narrow and maybe JW driven perspective of life outside.
The sex stuff was spot on. So much goes on. My wife believes that the creator was disfellowshipped for "loose conduct" and maybe something similar to the movie. She wasn't sure. But there is so much stuff that goes on in the cult. Some gets brushed under the rug, other things get blown up to rape status, it's all so confusing. The cousin fucking was just a really odd thing to throw in. The movie had an old school grimy feel to it. That cousin stuff didn't help things. Though with the confusion instilled in a kid like that, you can see how anything could happen.
Somehow despite the ugly portrayal I felt like there was some sort of sympathy toward the cult. I can't put my finger on it, maybe it was some of the cutaways, particularly the one old man.
Like Joho said, the stuff about the parents being so concerned about their precious congregational position was triggering. That was my dad.
The hanging part...............damn. As soon as the watch fell out my wife and I both looked at each other and groaned. We knew what that meant. That's tough.
I was confused about the dad and CoC and his meeting with the elders where he took the book in and the holes punched in doors and such. There were things that were thrown in that didn't add up to me, but I'm not good at figuring that stuff out usually. I often need things spelled out for me in movies a bit more.
The way it ended suddenly, but with that black screen after he did the finger thing, was very poignant, at least from what I read into it. I may be way off. But to me it looked like he was trying to escape, once again, using the fingertip touching trip shown throughout. Now though there was no escape. Reality had crashed down. There were no fluffy clouds in the sky, no fantasies, just utterly dark realities.
That movie has me feeling some type of way. I'm just not sure what. Kinda sick a bit. It was just bleak and maybe kind of dystopian, but that's also the realities. We know that's the realities inside the cult, reminiscent of the dystopian novel 1984. I felt like the portrayal of life outside though was also kind of painted the same, like nothing had value or meaning, and that part I don't really jive with.
