Overboard (1987) with Mo Fry Pasic

This week, Jamie, Caitlin, and special guest Mo Fry Pasic fall overboard, bonk their heads, and discuss Overboard (1987)!

Check out Mo's podcast Worse Than You and follow it on Instagram at @worsethanyoushow

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
On the Bechdel Cast. The questions asked if movies have.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, Zephyn bast
start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
Oh no, I fell off a boat and I can't
remember who I am.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
Oh nor well, I have an issue with that story,
and the issue is that the wrong gender fell off
the boat. Let's make it again thirty years later for
some reason and fix none of the problems.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
I watched that remake last night, and I have some
things to say about it. Oh, I will get there.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
I simply was like, I not even Anna Faris could
get me to watch the reboot, although I mean, look, look,
two powerful blondes have played this rancid plot and also two.

Speaker 3 (00:53):
Guys and two men.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Okay, okay, Welcome to the Bechdel Cast. This is like,
this is the day. This is the day in which
we see if we've been preparing for nine years for
this episode.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
Truly, this is the overboard episode which we will examine
through an intersectional feminist lens, which is what we do
on this podcast using the Bechdel test. Simply as a
jumping off point. But what's that?

Speaker 1 (01:20):
Well, okay, it is pertinent today and does it pass, Yes,
but in a really hostile way. Maybe one of my
favorite hostile passes. The Bechdel Test is a media materic
created by friend of the Pod Alison Bechtel. It was
originally created in the eighties as a part of her
incredible comic collection dis to Watch Out For, as a

(01:42):
one off bit that was specifically referencing the fact that
there are never queer women talking to each other's in cinema.
It has since been sort of adapted to a more
mainstream way. There's a lot of versions of the test.
Our version requires that two people of a marginal gender
with names speak to each other about something other than

(02:04):
a man for more than two lines of dialogue that
are plot important. I actually feel like it is very
relevant to today's episode. Sometimes we cover movies where the
test is not quite as applicable or relevant. Today, I
feel like this is an old school Bechdel cast episode,
like I had like stretched before I Stretched, and I

(02:26):
also ate Chips before.

Speaker 3 (02:28):
It feels like something we should have covered within the
first year of the show. You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (02:33):
Well, this is one of the movies though, if correct
me if I'm wrong, I feel like this is a
movie we have almost covered like six times. It's been
on Matreon polls at different times. We've had other guests shortlisted,
and then we're like, we almost covered it when the
reboot came out, but then no one saw the reboots,
so we were like, never mind. Like, this is a

(02:55):
movie that we've come so close to covering many times.
But I'm very glad that we wait it because I
feel like we are ready. We're ready to kill this
movie once and for all. We have an incredible guest here,
so let's get them in the mix.

Speaker 3 (03:12):
They are the host of the podcast Worse than You.
It's Mo Fry Passic. Hello, welcome.

Speaker 4 (03:21):
I'm just doing push ups over here.

Speaker 1 (03:24):
This is what the Feminist podcast was made for.

Speaker 5 (03:27):
I'm so excited.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
So let us know what your history with this film is.
I'm very curious.

Speaker 5 (03:35):
I'm so I'm so excited.

Speaker 4 (03:36):
So my history is like, this is the reason I
suggested it because like formative, Okay, I would describe this
as one of my stuck in the players, which is
my term for when you're a kid and you either
go to like a cabin or it's your you know,
babysitter's basement, and there's always a shitty TV and there's
one VCR stuck in the player and it's just always
on and it's like what they turn on and you play.

(03:58):
And so this was a very stuck in the player
movie in my family.

Speaker 3 (04:03):
The VHS that you can't get out of the.

Speaker 4 (04:06):
Machine exactly, and so I've watched it. So it was
so funny because in the true like Audihd Queno way,
I was like, I'm rewatching it.

Speaker 5 (04:15):
I'm rewatching it. And then I was like, I'll rewatch
it Monday night.

Speaker 4 (04:17):
And then I realized, truly knowing the pod was Monday morning,
didn't rewatch it. And then I was reviewing it, I go, oh,
I haven't memorized. I'm pretty sure I have this movie
memorized it because it was like on from Ages I
want to say five to eleven and Goldiehan. The fashion,
it was one of the most fantastic things.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
The fashion is unbelievable. The boat fashion alone is just
like I'm like, bring it back. Oh, maybe don't bring it,
but like bring it back for me. I want it.

Speaker 5 (04:48):
And I'm curious.

Speaker 4 (04:49):
This kicks it off because I grew up in very
famous household, you know, and we're very conscious of those things.
But I didn't clack it necessarily as a kid, because
I was a kid who didn't think, right you could
make out with the person or get a date, because
you know, you just didn't think that was for you,
if you're like a nerd or whatever it is. And

(05:10):
so then all movies and romantic movies were orchestration based,
and so it's like it was this huge orchestration where
don't worry, like they'll end up together, and so it
was so orchestrated and ridiculous. I thought of it from
that perspective, not from an absolutely Stockholm syndrome kidnapping.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
So I, well, I guess speaking to I had not
seen this movie before. I don't know why, because I
mean it might have just been I don't know. I
feel like I've seen the vast majority of like would
I would also say I was raised in a feminist
household for the time, you know, like nineties girl power.
We were for it in the home. It was not

(05:55):
it was I think it was like progressive for the time, right,
but we were, But like I was absolutely still watching
every problematic rom Com under the Sun. This was just
not one of them.

Speaker 5 (06:05):
Oh so it didn't hit you, so it didn't hit me.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
I definitely see and we'll talk about it. I definitely
see the things this movie is doing to try to
get around the concept, like the fact that goldieh. I mean,
first of all, Goldie Han like this movie. In my
I have no nostalgia for this movie. I think it
just like straight up fucking sucks. But I think Goldiehan

(06:29):
turns in a great performance in a terrible movie. I
think she genuinely does That's an awesome job in this movie.
She's super funny. She somehow, I think, manages to pull
off this like absurd arc for this character, Like when
she returns.

Speaker 4 (06:45):
I literally just got chills when she has to go
back to the boat. The nuance in her acting.

Speaker 1 (06:50):
It is wild, how like close she gets to selling
you on the premise. Like I think Goldiehan as Tire,
I feel like she is like the reason that the
movie is loved. Or that's my that's my biased opinion
because I love Goldie Han. But but yeah, I don't
know this. This movie has a dark aura for me.

(07:11):
I haven't seen the reboot. I feel bad because I'm like, mo,
you like it, I've I don't really have a lot
of nice things to say about it, but we'll talk
about it.

Speaker 5 (07:20):
I'll feel bad.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
It's very funny. I think that of all of the
takeaways from this movie, the thing that I left being
most like ah about is I found the score to
this movie so grating. I found the banjo's no like,
and it was informed by nothing other than the scene ending,

(07:43):
like it just happened at the end of every scene
where was like rain and it was like but it
was like eighties banjo, So it was electric. It was
electric banjo.

Speaker 5 (07:52):
I hated it.

Speaker 3 (07:53):
The score was written by Alan Silvestri, who, for my money,
is most famous for the Back to the Future score.
I see, okay, and I think also like who framed
Roger Rabbit and a lot of those like more actiony.

Speaker 5 (08:06):
But cartoonish too, right, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (08:08):
Exactly, so, I think he does pretty well at those
those genres. But it doesn't really make sense for a
rom com.

Speaker 5 (08:15):
So but is that evidence that was intentionally supposed to
be camp?

Speaker 1 (08:19):
Maybe it could it could be if so, I was
like every like by the end. And also, this movie
is so long for what it is Okay, I feel bad.
I so, I had never seen it before, and I
watched it and I was like, wow, this is this
is the movie we've been preparing to cover because it
has a lot of it's really kind of playing the

(08:41):
hits on tropes we've discussed over the years. So I'm
excited to talk about it. Love Kurt Russell and Goldie Hahn.
I believe in their love. I also think their relationship
probably sold this movie at the time because everyone's like, well,
that didn't. Actually we know that they're happy and they're
together and like their son took his first steps on
the set of this movie, and like they're a Hollywood couple.

(09:04):
It's charming and they're still like it's great. But I
don't know why as a married couple you'd be like
or whatever a couple that you'd be like, you know,
it would be a fun plot to play out together.
It almost feels like a sex thing that they're doing.
You're like, oh, I feel like I shouldn't be watching this.

Speaker 5 (09:20):
Watch that's incredible.

Speaker 1 (09:22):
It is kind of a porn setup. It's a porny setup.

Speaker 4 (09:25):
Actually, I'm sorry, he's like non shirt in the cedar closet.

Speaker 5 (09:29):
Yeah, that's porny as hell.

Speaker 1 (09:31):
Enemy's to Lovers a classic.

Speaker 3 (09:33):
It's showing his nipples, et cetera.

Speaker 1 (09:37):
So I think, my, my, yeah, I think the movie
is terrible, but it's definitely fun to talk about. I'm excited. Caitlyn.
When's your history with this movie.

Speaker 3 (09:49):
I didn't grow up with it either. I didn't see
it until we had already started the podcast.

Speaker 1 (09:56):
There.

Speaker 3 (09:56):
There have been a few movies that we've gotten so
many requests for that I wasn't familiar with that. I
was like, oh, I should probably just kind of preemptively
prepare myself for this when we inevitably cover this movie someday,
and this was one of those. So I probably watched
it for the first time I don't know, maybe five
to seven years ago, so I don't have any nostalgia

(10:18):
for it. However, I don't think it absolutely well, Okay,
let me, I don't think it sucks. I well, okay, I.

Speaker 1 (10:25):
Think it's I'm the bitch of the episode. I don't know.

Speaker 5 (10:29):
I'm obsessed with people hating it. You're right too, I
think I think it.

Speaker 3 (10:33):
To be clear, I think it sucks. From a Bechdel
cast perspective, it will fare terribly from a high concept
rom com from the eighties. No, I like, I think
the script is not horrible. Like again, I like it's
bad from our perspective, but I don't know, like I didn't,

(10:57):
I don't hate it. I don't love it.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
Movie that feels like a movie is sure.

Speaker 3 (11:02):
Right, I mean again the high conceptness of the premise.
But but but there's there's like the high concept you're
referred to includes forced motherhood and.

Speaker 1 (11:17):
Enslaving.

Speaker 3 (11:19):
Like yeah, no, it's good. It's a concept. It's gonna
get like zero nipples from me, But but.

Speaker 5 (11:25):
It got too from Kurt.

Speaker 1 (11:27):
It's true, he's tips out whole movie. And like Kurt
Russell is awesome and hot and charming, and again, like
these two actors are so like and obviously they have
ridiculous chemistry because they have a child together. I also
love that the Grandpa from Gilmore Girls is he's there,
is the villain, and his lines just took me out

(11:50):
without fail like I thought he was, like he's whatever.
We'll talk about him because I feel like he fulfills.

Speaker 5 (11:56):
Talk about a queer performance as well.

Speaker 1 (12:00):
Performance. He's like I'm shooting skeat, like he's all of
his lines or like I'm written like he's always just
saying what he's doing, which I think is hilarious, hilarious
thing for a character to do, where he's like, I'm
dancing and I'm rich, and you're like, but he sells
it because it's ever herman Like this movie. I like,

(12:21):
I guess speaking to what you're saying. It's like super campy,
and there were moments that I laughed, it's fun. Just
I just hate what's happening to the main character the
whole time. And I hated Kurt Russell's character. They're like,
here's a bunch of uh, here's a bunch of stereotypes
around poor people in this world. They're all true. You're like,
why why here are stereotypes around single fathers in this world?

(12:43):
They're all true. You're like this man, I like the
pee Wee Kid.

Speaker 3 (12:47):
I like the pee Wee well Kid. That kid is
very Jamie Codin.

Speaker 1 (12:53):
That was Yeah, it was like I felt seen in
the pee Wee Kid character.

Speaker 3 (12:56):
I also liked it.

Speaker 1 (12:57):
Weirdly, I don't know if this is like a directorial choice,
but the kid, we're acting like kids in this movie.

Speaker 5 (13:03):
I adore that part. Like it was like endearing. They
wanted to be feral, but they were actually just being
kids in a house.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
It seemed like they were big, like they were like
almost improvising or something, which felt which feels weird in
a scripted movie, but it was kind of refreshing to
see kids that were like just did Yeah, kind of
seemed loose doing what they want.

Speaker 3 (13:23):
Yeah, yeah, true, But uh, either way, this movie gives
us so very much to talk about it.

Speaker 4 (13:29):
I know, who theories, rich text, high concept, rich text, overboard.

Speaker 3 (13:36):
Yeah, exactly. So let's take a quick break and then
we'll come back for the recap.

Speaker 1 (13:52):
And we're back.

Speaker 3 (13:52):
Okay, we're back.

Speaker 1 (13:54):
What happened in this movie? It's actually so much.

Speaker 3 (13:57):
It's a lot, And you're right, Jamie, it it's almost
two hours long. I firmly believe that no rom com
should be longer than like ninety five minutes.

Speaker 1 (14:07):
So I'm like, if we've got a gaslight this woman
to death, we could take out a few rounds. We
could take out a few rounds of gaslight.

Speaker 5 (14:13):
There were so many rounds.

Speaker 1 (14:15):
It was like shockingly thorough to the point where it's
all diabolical.

Speaker 5 (14:19):
And the only redeeming part of him is that he
was owed money.

Speaker 1 (14:22):
What for six hundred dollars he did this? Maybe you're
going to jail, Like what do you mean?

Speaker 3 (14:28):
He human trafficked a person.

Speaker 1 (14:30):
He human traffic And that's like kind of the tip
of the iceberg somehow. Anyways, I love movie premises Where
Your Life.

Speaker 5 (14:38):
So there's this really.

Speaker 1 (14:40):
Like wealthy socialite and no one cares where she is.

Speaker 3 (14:45):
Well, that's even less believable in the remake really because
it came out in twenty eighteen. Oh yeah, and it
takes place in twenty eighteen when there was so much
more technology to be able to like track a person
slash like, notice that you're looking at a famous person whatever.

Speaker 1 (15:03):
I mean, it's like it's fat, Like I'm not gonna
cinema since this. But it is funny that she that
no one is looking for her except her mother, who
for most of the movie only appears in you could tell.
They shot all of her scenes in basically a day,
and she just kept changing dresses like she's just.

Speaker 3 (15:19):
Like sitting in her fancy bed with her fancy dogs,
being like, where's my daughter?

Speaker 5 (15:23):
Those dogs?

Speaker 4 (15:24):
Though, that was like informative to like my whole aesthetic
though that was hugely aspiring.

Speaker 1 (15:29):
I like that this movie. I mean, it's like not
really plot relevant, but they just elect to go for
like a very eighties like opulent aesthetic troop Beverly Hills. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
where it's it's oh I loved I wish I had
watched Troop Beverly Hills instead, but but yeah, like where

(15:50):
it's like, I mean, and this is reference where they're
like calling her TACKI and You're like, no, she's she's beautiful,
she's perfect.

Speaker 4 (15:58):
Well doesn't you even call her nails tack to? And
like even the language of that.

Speaker 5 (16:02):
Too is so like double entendre maybe yeah a little bit.

Speaker 1 (16:05):
Yeah, I do. I do like that. That's one of
the I mean. And this is like when I read
interviews with the writer, it was like she it made sense.
We were like, oh, yeah, this is clearly intentional. But
this movie weirdly does feel like it takes place in
like nineteen thirty five, because it's like, that's such a
good point writing a screwball comedy, like it's a it's
it feels like almost like a Catherine Hepburn kind of

(16:28):
premise totally.

Speaker 4 (16:29):
And now that even thinking about like the way at
the fancy events like his top like even their succeedos,
or like a little nineteen thirties gilded like or whatever
it is.

Speaker 1 (16:37):
And certainly the gender roles put put upon. Not that
these gender roles didn't exist to the eighties, but it
just it just feels like a script that was written
in nineteen thirty five that was for some reason made
in nineteen eighty seven.

Speaker 3 (16:53):
Anyways, in any case, the plot of the movie is this,
We meet Dean Prophet played by Kurt Russell. He's a
carpenter who is hired by a wealthy woman named Joanna
played by Goldie Hahn to remodel the walk in closet
on her and her husband's yacht. And he, of course

(17:15):
is played by Edward Herman aka the Grandpa from Gilmore Girls,
so basically kind of the same character as he plays
in Gilmore Girls.

Speaker 5 (17:23):
But like, just like a rich maybe he's booked him
the job.

Speaker 1 (17:25):
It kind of I do believe that this would be Wait, mo,
did you watch Gilmore Girls? Were Gilmore Girls? Oh, it's
one of my favorites. It's the most millennial basic thing
about me, and I celebrate it.

Speaker 5 (17:37):
I love that.

Speaker 1 (17:38):
But yeah, I would buy that this is the like
Grandpa from Gilmore Girls. The character is like Koke years like,
We're like he was weird in the eighties. He was
like skinny and running around on a bow. Two no's
we were all doing it right.

Speaker 5 (17:57):
I love that.

Speaker 3 (17:59):
So Joanna is very entitled and elitist and she's grossed
out by working class people like Dean, and she has
him build shelves and shoe racks and.

Speaker 1 (18:11):
He does a great job.

Speaker 3 (18:13):
He'd liked he does.

Speaker 1 (18:14):
He's basically a mechanical engineer.

Speaker 5 (18:16):
No, because she doesn't want mobs.

Speaker 3 (18:18):
So well, he used the wrong materials. He used oak,
and she wanted cedar, but she did not say that
she wanted cedar, so they argue. He calls her out
for being awful and entitled. She fires him and refuses
to pay him the six hundred dollars for materials and labor,
and she pushes Dean and all of his tools overboard.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
Right, that's the name of the movie. And this is
where you have to ask yourself. I would be so
upset if that happened to me. Would I be upset
enough to kidnap and traffic the person who had done
it to me? I don't know. I might have brought
her to small claims court, maybe, but that's not what
movies are about. There's a part in that sequence where like, again,

(19:05):
Goldiehan is fabulous. This entire sequence, she looks incredible. She's
so funny. And then there's like that weird exchange she
has with her butler where she's like talking about she's
talking about caviar in this really horny way. For some reason,
You're like, I don't know why that happened, but I
loved that it happened, where she's like needs to be
round and hard and burst in your mouth, and you're like, yeah, it.

Speaker 4 (19:30):
Was so like it's also like her performance of like
I Know how to be rich, and it was like yeah,
like I feel like it cannot be stated.

Speaker 5 (19:36):
It feels like plot important.

Speaker 4 (19:38):
That her voice is Chauncy is the husband, and then
the voice changed because it's very.

Speaker 3 (19:44):
Like it has to this doesn't sit up.

Speaker 5 (19:47):
It's like may West.

Speaker 1 (19:48):
It's a big choice.

Speaker 3 (19:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
It feels like, yeah, she's like pulling from old Hollywood. Yeah,
and it's like working even though she looks so eighties
and she's acting so through. I don't know, Goldiehan can
do it anything. Goldiehann undefeated.

Speaker 3 (20:03):
My note about this scene. I kept trying to draw
all of the parallels between this movie and Titanic, because,
I mean, hello, movie about a rich woman and a
poor man who meet on a boat and fall in love,
and then at the end of the movie they're both
submerged in water, fully clothed. It's true, that's the plot
of Titanic.

Speaker 5 (20:22):
True.

Speaker 3 (20:23):
But there's the part at the dinner scene in Titanic
where one of the boat staff says, how do you
take your caviat and and then I was like, oh,
what if it was that question? But then Goldiehan's response
of cavia should be round and hard and of adequate size.
It should burst in your mouth at precisely the right moment.

(20:44):
I mean, so that was my fun little bit I
was doing with myself.

Speaker 1 (20:47):
I really wish Billy Zane was in this movie. He
would be great in this movie.

Speaker 5 (20:51):
He would be a good hut. How old was he then?

Speaker 1 (20:54):
He's still pretty young. I mean he was in he
was an adult. He was in because he was in
Back to the Future.

Speaker 3 (20:59):
I was ten years before Titanic.

Speaker 1 (21:01):
Yeah, a young Zay. I would love a young Zay
in this. I don't know what he would do, but
I just like to have him around.

Speaker 3 (21:10):
Yeah, he plays the pewee herman kid anyway. So they're
arguing on the boat, Joanna and Dean are. She pushes
him off overboard with all of his tools, and so
Dean heads home, where he's a single father to four

(21:31):
young and unruly children because his wife died three years prior,
so he's got a lot on his plate right now.

Speaker 1 (21:41):
I have such thoughts about the choice to kill off
the wife instead of have her like abandon them bail
on the family, which I feel like works way better
with the story. But I think sometimes movies just like
they're like there's a oh no, we just got to
kill her, like it's just Disney Princess mode, because I
just feel like it's it's there's whatever. It's a silly movie,

(22:02):
but I am gonna that we come here to pick
it to death. We have The children are clearly like
first of all, Kurt Russell Top five most evil characters
in film for doing for also doing this to his children.
They clearly lost their mother when they were very young,
and it as written they are constantly thinking about this.

(22:25):
He for some reason, isn't he is like not really
thinking about the dead wife very much. He's mostly thinking
about the six hundred dollars.

Speaker 4 (22:35):
I think a genius psychological thriller would be this entire
movie from the middle kid's perspective, where it's just fuzzy
enough to be like, my mom died.

Speaker 5 (22:43):
But that's my mom. My mom's back, right.

Speaker 1 (22:46):
I'm like, say, something, did they look similar? Like there's
no trace of this woman in their home either, right,
like she does. I just feel like her picture would
be around. I don't know, I don't know. Everyone grieves
it a different way. And yeah, Kurt Russell is dealing

(23:06):
with his grief by kidnapping a different.

Speaker 3 (23:08):
Woman, kidnapping a woman to force her to be the
mother of his children so that he can just resume
his life of like going bowling and drinking beers with
his friends.

Speaker 1 (23:18):
Which also, yeah, I mean just speaking to I just
I again, Like Kurt Russell is so charming, and I
hate this character because it is like I don't think,
I mean, let me know if you disagree, Like I
couldn't really parse. It seems like he was doing this anyways,
like he was just a straight up negligent parent. Because
the house is a pit, the kids are alone, which

(23:40):
their principal points out, but the movie is like, and
she's a bitch to do that.

Speaker 4 (23:44):
But what confuses me is the performance of being a slob,
Like when he comes back in, he pours alcohol and
himself to smell like he's fucked up, right, And I'm like,
aren't you fucked up?

Speaker 5 (23:53):
The g's what I mean? And so I like, does
he want to be a slob? Because to like cut
like what was that? You know what I mean? Like,
what was that performance from him?

Speaker 1 (24:02):
It's one of the many confusing like I feel like
trying to say something about class that doesn't really happen
at least I thought in this movie where like the
principle comes over, and the principle is also a very
confusing character because like she does have some good points,
but then she's also has some terrible point, like you
just don't know what to do with her. But Kurt

(24:24):
Russell's kind of like I thought they were setting up
him up to be like I'm doing my best, but
like I'm a single parent and I'm like a working
class guy and I have to work a lot to
support my four kids without any help from anyone else.
And so he's like you know, she's judging him and
he's upset about that. But then you see his parenting
and it is pretty negligent, so negligent, and so you're

(24:47):
just like, so she was right, like what is this say?

Speaker 4 (24:51):
I think that's their attempt, though I do think their
attempt like him performing like is also like telling you audience, like,
don't worry, he's safe.

Speaker 5 (24:58):
He's not going to rape her tonight because it's you
know what I mean that. We're also like we'll.

Speaker 3 (25:03):
Get we'll get there, we have to get there.

Speaker 1 (25:06):
That whole thing. We're there. Like I was like, that's
why I'm rooting for him, because he didn't dissulter.

Speaker 5 (25:11):
But I think they really think that that is like
checking the box of like, see he's a good guys,
a good.

Speaker 1 (25:17):
Guy, I agree, which is where that's what we can
get into it later. But that's why I think they
make the Edward Herman character so evil so that Kurt
Russell seems viable by comparison. Yes, yes, anyways, sorry, but
we're still about.

Speaker 3 (25:36):
Well, Okay, So we see Dean back at home and
we see that he has a lot on his plate
of being a single father and also trying to find
steady work. He has this friend Billy, who they have
a dream of building a mini golf course together. So
we'll put a pin in that.

Speaker 5 (25:57):
Billy is so Randy Quaid coated. Also, it's true.

Speaker 1 (26:03):
And there I did take note of, like the fact
that I didn't know they were gonna that they were
actually going to build a very expensive golf course. But
because this was a comedy that came out in the eighties,
I'm like, for sure, we're going to see a very
expensive golf course set piece for no reason late in
the movie. And sure enough we do this. Also we haven't,
I don't think said yet. Directed by Gary Marshall, Friend

(26:25):
of the Pod, a man who we love and who
sometimes plagues us. I mean because like Princess Diary is
one of my favorite movies ever he directed it. Which
is you can tell because Hector Alizondo is in this
movie for two seconds, and he's in every Gary Marshall movie.

Speaker 3 (26:41):
Wow, I thought I didn't even notice him.

Speaker 1 (26:43):
He plays the guy on the news who starts singing
like the fisher mil Oh my god, young Hector Alixander
is him. Yeah, and I love that, Like one of
my favorite little Hollywood anecdotes is just I think they
like randomly met and then Gary Marshall's like, I want
to put you in all my movies, and then he did.

Speaker 5 (27:00):
That's like his Hitchcock signature, you know what I mean, yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:04):
Something, because he's like obviously her charactor Alizondo and Princess
Diary's incredible, But like he I think, like many directors,
Gary Marshall made a lot of great movies, and then
there was a clear point of falloff in the way
that there's a clear Tim Burton fall off, in the
way that there was a clear Robert Zemeckis' has been on.

Speaker 3 (27:24):
What do you mean Welcome tomorrowin is the best movie ever.

Speaker 5 (27:27):
Yeah, that bomber Jacket. Nobody can be.

Speaker 1 (27:31):
Like, I don't know, directors get old and then the
movies start to suck. But like, but this is still
kind of Gary Marshall's thriving, Like the Princess diarys is
fifteen years away, and then he gets into New York'sey
Valentine's Day kind of the ones that we covered because.

Speaker 4 (27:46):
I would argue about him specifically though, that he didn't
fall off society fell off because he knows Trope better
than anybody Princess Diary's the Beautiful, the glasses off here,
the circumstance, orchestration love like he's hitting it, that sort
of seventh grade seven minutes in Heaven Forced Together, he
like nails it.

Speaker 1 (28:06):
That is very true.

Speaker 3 (28:07):
That's what I'm talking about, the high concept promise.

Speaker 1 (28:10):
Yeah, the Times, The Times did not go in in
our friend Gary's favor. Oh right, because he also did
run Away Bride. God Yeah, pretty Woman. Orchestration yes, prolific, prolific.
So yeah, this is actually made before a lot of
his best movies. I don't know, Puzzling, Puzzling anyways, just

(28:30):
wanted to shout out Hector Elizondo before I forgot that's.

Speaker 3 (28:33):
A really good chest of course. Okay, so we get
a better sense of Dean's home life. Meanwhile, on Joanna's
yacht that night, she accidentally and kind of randomly falls overboard.
I assumed because I already knew the premise of this
movie going in before the first time I watched it,

(28:54):
and I was like, Oh, there's going to be some
big thing that gets her to fall overboard, and it's
just like quite random. So I was like, oh, okay, anyway,
she falls off the boat and washes up on shore
with amnesia. She does not.

Speaker 5 (29:09):
Remember who she is, a classic trope.

Speaker 3 (29:12):
I mean women be bunking their heads and forgetting it.

Speaker 1 (29:16):
Now. That's now, that's what I call trope. Seen most
recently in Falling for Christmas darring Lizzie Lohan. She can
amnesia in that Oh my god, she she gets bombed.
She gets bombed. I forget it's on a ski slope,
because it's a Christmas movie.

Speaker 4 (29:29):
If somebody in my world had amnesia, then neuroses don't
come out of.

Speaker 1 (29:33):
I'm so sorry.

Speaker 5 (29:33):
You're never gonna think odds and everyone is usually just like, hey, okay,
you'll remember soon.

Speaker 1 (29:40):
The sequence when she first gets amniesia, I think is
very funny, and it's a high for the character because
she is like they're like canonically, she cannot not be
a pain in the ass. It is just like her
core quality. She can forgets everything about herself, including her
government name. But first and foremost she is.

Speaker 5 (29:58):
A bitch and best read is so right.

Speaker 1 (30:02):
It's so funny her core.

Speaker 3 (30:06):
She has no memory of who she is or anything
about her past. Her husband Grant sees a news report
about you know, this woman in the hospital with amnesia
and he's like, WHOA, that's my wife. So he goes
to pick her up, but she's still, as we were
just saying, very cruel and entitled. So he sees this

(30:26):
as his chance to escape her. Yeah, and so he's
like just kidding, I don't know her and he leaves.

Speaker 5 (30:33):
She's also looking like fraggle Rock in this. I love
how obsessed.

Speaker 1 (30:37):
With it she is not she is not looking awesome,
but I mean she's had a rough couple of days,
and this is I think, Okay, I'm like, probably not
intended commentary, but well, I guess kind of like the
two people she is surrounded by throughout this, including after
Kurt Russell gets his little idea, is she's surrounded by

(30:57):
a doctor and a cop, both of who do not
believe her, and gaslight like join in on the gaslight.
And I was like, you know, but I felt like
that was like a good little bit of writing. You're like, oh, yeah,
truth and comedy there it is. I don't know if
they meant it, but I was like, that's true. Doctors
and cops famously don't believe women about anything.

Speaker 4 (31:20):
And it did set up because he was so you know,
misogynistic it did set him up to release her to Rando.

Speaker 1 (31:26):
It's true, It's true.

Speaker 3 (31:28):
Yeah. So Dean also shows up at the hospital because
he sees this same news story and realizes that he
can get Joanna to pay off the debt. She owes
him if he pretends that she is his wife and
makes her take care of his house and his kids.

(31:49):
So he goes to the hospital to be like, I'm
your husband. She of course doesn't recognize him and refuses
to believe this.

Speaker 1 (31:57):
Which, again I think a lesser movie a trope that
we don't see in this movie necessarily born sexy Yesterday,
which I feel like is a common bunk on the
head trope, or like a lady gets bomked on the
head or hatches out of an egg and like falls
in love with the first person she needs, which does
technically happen here. But she is resistant to it, which

(32:20):
I think makes the character more credible, but also makes
the premise more ichy because she is resisting it every
step of the way.

Speaker 5 (32:28):
A lot of nos.

Speaker 1 (32:29):
Oh yes, yeah, a lot of nos. She is not like, Okay,
let's try it. She sort of never does that.

Speaker 3 (32:35):
So true, and he tries a few little he has
a few little tricks up his sleeve to try to
get this to work, such as he surprised kisses her. Yeah,
he makes up a backstory about her.

Speaker 5 (32:50):
He's named her.

Speaker 3 (32:51):
Also, he gives her.

Speaker 1 (32:54):
Oh when she keeps the old name. At the end,
I was like, this movie is evil, evil or queer?
I wind up both win. I like that.

Speaker 3 (33:07):
So he's trying these things, and then he's like, well,
if I wasn't her husband, then how would I know
about the birthmark on her ass because he saw a
birthmark earlier when she was wearing a thong bathing suit.

Speaker 1 (33:22):
Which I read is like pivoted to be a different
racist joke in the twenty eighteen one that he has
like a speedy Gonzalez tattoo or something. This is true, Okay.
I read the premise to the reboot, and I would
just that was because I was like, oh, let's see
how much they changed it. Maybe I'll watch it.

Speaker 4 (33:39):
But then they were also like, I need everyone to
know that he's like a strawberry shape birth more. And
then this woman in a hospital gown in a public
waiting room and has to go behind a TV and
pull up her own gown.

Speaker 5 (33:51):
The doctor's like well, legally, if you have it, you gotta.

Speaker 3 (33:54):
Go ground, by which they are like, yep, that's proof
enough for us, let's send you off with this random man.

Speaker 1 (34:03):
I'm choosing to see that as incisive commentary.

Speaker 3 (34:10):
Yes, yes, let's go with that. But yeah, the doctor
and the Cop release Joanna to Dean, although her new
name is Annie now the doctor and the Cop.

Speaker 1 (34:19):
I'd like, come on, and yeah, she's on TV. I
like that again because this is like such a I
watched The Women over the weekend, so I'm like in
screwball comedy mode, but like they go out of the
way to show you why no one is looking for
her kind of like everyone like just happens to miss

(34:40):
the newscast and she canonically has no friends because she's
an asshole question mark. So long story short, no one's
looking for her. This is I mean, the news loves
to bend over backwards for a missing white woman, but
not in this world.

Speaker 4 (34:56):
Well, also, doesn't it like come on when Howard the
husband is like making out with Bimbo in the thing
and he like turns off the thing, it's like actively
shown like we're not taking her back, and even if
it plays, I'm gonna turn it off, right.

Speaker 1 (35:09):
They're like, there's three people in the world who know
who this lady is and they all hate her, and
you're like, okay, got it.

Speaker 3 (35:17):
Yes, So Dean takes Joanna aka Annie home to his
very messy house and very rambunctious children. Travis is the eldest.
There are twins Greg and Charlie, and then the youngest
is Joe, who is mister pee Wee Herman. And the

(35:40):
kids are all in on the ruse and they are
totally fine to pretend that Annie is and always has
been their mother.

Speaker 1 (35:49):
This is so he is so evil for this. I'm like,
that is so horrible. I hate him. I hate him.

Speaker 3 (35:58):
He's nasty.

Speaker 1 (35:59):
Right.

Speaker 4 (36:00):
There's like a kid's book that I had that I
don't find this data anywhere else, but it's like a
legitimate book. I have it on like artists and they
would like make cartoons of artists to learn about their lives,
and I do think it's true. One of the cartoons
was about Salvador Dolli and like, maybe why you're so
messed up in that his parents had a son named
Salvador who lived till he was nine and he passed away,

(36:21):
and then they had Salvador Dolli, the artist we know,
but they treated him as if he was that son,
and so Salvador would be like, I don't want my beans.
I'm like, you love beans. You've always loved being Salvador. Oh,
and like that's the comic they did four children, but
they would like they forced him to be and it
feels exactly like what it would create, just absolute splitting
in the brain and like psychop it that he'd be like,

(36:43):
that's my mom.

Speaker 5 (36:44):
We're doing a bit is kids.

Speaker 1 (36:45):
I'm like, you're fucking your kids have forever forever.

Speaker 3 (36:50):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (36:50):
I kept waiting for one of the kids to like
threaten to tell, but they really are. I mean they're
they're on board and then.

Speaker 3 (36:57):
And then they're overboard and they're over.

Speaker 1 (37:02):
Because once Goldie Han is gaslight enough to become Mommy
and she's like hose spraying Mommy, they're like, oh like
her rustle most evil character ever because he just like
everyone he loves.

Speaker 4 (37:15):
He when we enter that home, do you guys watch
this talk about stuck in the player We had I
got it for free, taped to a pizza box in
a sleeve, but a DVD of Mister Mom.

Speaker 3 (37:28):
I make a mister Mom reference in my recap because
of the montage where she starts doing all of the
domestic chores and she's horrible at them.

Speaker 1 (37:36):
Actually, yes, exactly she is.

Speaker 5 (37:39):
And it's such an eighties Yes, I love you did
that because it's an eighties mess house. It's the exact
same kind.

Speaker 1 (37:45):
Yes, yeah, like there they were just like, okay, every
production designer works from the same pile of garbage.

Speaker 4 (37:52):
And like, and there's always like an iron and ironing
board on top of something it shouldn't be.

Speaker 3 (37:57):
Oh no, it's burning.

Speaker 5 (37:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:59):
I did laugh because it reminded of me trying to
cook when she just shoves that. She keeps trying to
shove the chicken, and like a whole carrot loved her.
Oh I just I was like, wow, okay.

Speaker 5 (38:09):
The eminem is on the on the white bread with
the nuga heaven. I want that right now.

Speaker 1 (38:14):
Like Goudiehan is so funny. It's it's not fair.

Speaker 3 (38:18):
It's but all okay. Something that I think subverts a
trope is that a woman's holding a chainsaw. Oh we
don't know why, we don't know what her chores is,
that she needs to be wielding a chainsaw. But she's
really bad at it, and she cuts the head off
of a scarecrow and that's feminism.

Speaker 4 (38:36):
But you're still right because it was she was doing
the feminine chores and.

Speaker 1 (38:39):
Like, what what was that? Like, Yeah, she's like also
chopping wood. I guess it's because like they live in
the woods that I'm like, maybe this is a feminine children. Well, Kaitlyne,
you're from I'm from the wood woods. I was like, Okay,
fucked up to say you're from the woods.

Speaker 5 (38:55):
What do your people do?

Speaker 3 (38:56):
Yeah, Well, as a matter of fact, in addition to
my you know, feminized household chores that I would have
to do inside, my dad would make me go out
into the woods with him. He would find trees that
had fallen over. He would bring his chains off, he
would cut them up, and then I had to help

(39:17):
load the logs onto his little okay, tractor wagon thing.

Speaker 5 (39:21):
That's beautiful.

Speaker 3 (39:22):
Yeah. Wow, So I'm kind of a lumber jack.

Speaker 1 (39:26):
You are the woods.

Speaker 3 (39:27):
I am woods and a growed. Anyway, So to get
to this moment in the story, she's trying to get
acclimated to living in this house, Dean puts her in
ill fitting clothes. We'll talk about all of the fat
phobia surrounding that. He makes her cook dinner and his

(39:49):
plan is to have her do housework for a month
to pay off her debt to him while he goes
out and neglects his children and his household and drinks
with his buddy Billy, which.

Speaker 1 (40:03):
It seems like he planned to kind of do anyways, right.

Speaker 4 (40:06):
What exit strategy though, if it's a month, what's your
exit strategy?

Speaker 3 (40:11):
What? He has not thought that far ahead?

Speaker 1 (40:14):
No, and then it's and then it's hard for him.
It is so wild what this movie asks you to
empathize with. Just on Kurt Russell's charisma alone, You're like,
even that cannot sell you on it. Where the scene
where he's like, I have to tell you the truth.
Oh no, but I can't because I love you. I'm like, yeah,
that's why you're keeping her prisoner.

Speaker 3 (40:34):
Because you yeah, yikes, yeah whatever. And then that night
this is the scene where he comes home. He pretends
to be drunker than he is and tries to manipulate
her into having sex with him. She is like hard pass.

Speaker 5 (40:52):
Which he says, boom boom, and she always gives it
to him. If you want a guy.

Speaker 3 (40:56):
Nasty, nasty yeah.

Speaker 1 (40:57):
And he also is like bragging to his he and
his gross friend, like they're they're like, so are you
gonna are you gonna rape the woman you kidnapped? And
then he's like, haha, maybe I will. And then he
gets home and then she rejects him, and then and
then we're supposed to think, oh, he's not that bad
a guy. He's he's not. Instead of assaulting the woman

(41:18):
he kidnapped, he's making her sleep on the.

Speaker 4 (41:20):
Couch and making her believe that it's her fault because
she has a bad.

Speaker 3 (41:23):
Back, right, lots of gaslighting. She has to sleep on
the couch under a leak in the roof, and then
the dogs are mauling her the whole night, like.

Speaker 4 (41:35):
I do every New Year's though every single New Year's
I play the fantasy when it's dripping the leaking and
then it turns into the New Year's song.

Speaker 1 (41:43):
Oh my God.

Speaker 5 (41:44):
I play that every New Year's because.

Speaker 3 (41:45):
It's like, because they're singing old LNG sign.

Speaker 4 (41:49):
Yes and then like the confetti comes, like she wakes
up and it's like, you know, I think toilet paper
are one of the kids.

Speaker 5 (41:56):
And she's back there and I say I love that.

Speaker 3 (42:00):
It's a good secrets anyway. So the next day, this
is the montage where Dean gives her a list of
daily chores. So we see her cleaning up the house,
fixing meals, washing clothes, doing yard work, using the chainsaw
for some reason, and she's bad at everything. And this
is the like mister Mom parallel montage, and Annie hates

(42:23):
this life and she's still very skeptical that this is
her home and her family.

Speaker 1 (42:29):
I was impressed at how many attempts that she makes
to get the truth. Yeah, where she's like, well, we're pictures,
and then he has to have his friend do like
proto photoshop where it's like just her own, not her
mug shot, but her like just like they're just manipulating
the same picture. It's so ridiculous, but I did appreciate that,

(42:51):
like she was at least asking questions, which I feel like,
I don't know, the bar is like absolutely on the floor,
But I feel like a lot of movies like this
you don't see the character who's bompd on the head
really ask questions in a meaningful way.

Speaker 4 (43:06):
Well, it's also so interesting because we immediately buy into
the fact that she wouldn't be mourning the fact she
doesn't remember anything. She's like or like accepting amnesia being
in a hospital, which we all would.

Speaker 5 (43:17):
She literally is like, no, I know who I am.
This ain't it. This ain't it right.

Speaker 1 (43:21):
It's like the vibes are this is not I like, wait,
what was the line that she said that. I was like,
I want to start saying that when I wake up
every day, you're living a nightmare that begins at the
crack of dawn. You're like, yeah, exactly, exactly.

Speaker 3 (43:36):
Yeah. So she's looking for memorabilia, you know, photographs. She
can't find anything. Then she has a flash of memory
of Dean when he was working on her closet on
the yacht, but she doesn't know exactly what it means,
and he, of course gaslights this memory out of her brain.
And then this is also when he has his friend

(43:57):
photoshop the photos to quote unquote prove that they have
a life together. And because of this, Annie seems to
accept that this must be her life. Either that or
she's dissociating, but she tries to pick the best of it,
doing the chores and being more playful with the kids.
There's a water hose scene that I don't really understand

(44:19):
what that was supposed to be.

Speaker 1 (44:21):
But by jinks, now she's a mama.

Speaker 3 (44:24):
She's fun.

Speaker 5 (44:24):
Yeah, but it was in the kitchen it was like
this isn't like she plays back.

Speaker 3 (44:30):
I get right, so.

Speaker 1 (44:31):
Even yeah, confusing. The kids are absolutely feral. They're eating
with their hands. You're like Kurt Russell's all time worst father.

Speaker 4 (44:42):
But how many It felt like a thousand days in
one day because then we have the count the poison
ivy situation. But it's like the way they were trying
to show us the development of a relationship, but time
is also not really working there.

Speaker 1 (44:55):
Yes, it is pretty unclear how long she's there for.

Speaker 3 (44:57):
I guess yeah totally, but some amount of time passes.
She goes to the school and defends her quote unquote
family when the school principle says that the children are
a nuisance and that there isn't adequate parental guidance at home.

Speaker 1 (45:13):
Unfortunately she is correct, but like, wait, her argument is
so round about that she still ends up kind of
being a villain because she's like upset about it because
she wants the children to perform better on standardized tests.
And then Goldie Han is like steris tests are bullshit.
I'm like, Okay, she's right. Yeah, but like everyone's right
and everyone's wrong. This is really bizarre because you're like,

(45:33):
at the end of the day, one of the kids
can't read, so like, yeah, the principle is right, the
pristal is right.

Speaker 3 (45:38):
That like there's not adequate parental guidance at home, which
Annie realizes is true. So she goes to Dean and
she's like, you're not a good father and you need
to be more active in your son's lives. And he
dismisses her at first as he's obsessed with doing but
later he apologizes and they have a tender moment and

(45:59):
he even lets her sleep in the bed and this
time he takes the couch. So they're starting to vibe
the question.

Speaker 1 (46:10):
The things, the things presented as like, wow, he's really
becoming a better man in full things like letting this
woman he's kidnapped sleep in a bed for the first time.

Speaker 4 (46:22):
Can I say, like, from my child like perspective, it
didn't feel like he's coming a good man. It feels
like it felt like she's finally being normal and not ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (46:30):
Like right, that's probably probably what we're supposed to think, right.

Speaker 4 (46:35):
Yeah, yeah, totally like she's finally not being a difficult bitch.

Speaker 1 (46:41):
She's finally accepting his love. I mean exact thing. Yeah,
I was trying to think of other Stockholm syndrome because
it's like, I feel like Beauty and the Beast is
the one that, like people attributed Stockholm syndrome too, but
like that discourse came all the way around, because that's
not really quite Stockholm syndrome. This feels kind of more

(47:01):
cut and dry Stockholm syndrome because it's like she has
like no tools really with which to fight this situation,
because it's like it is a war of like mental
attrition and actual imprisonment.

Speaker 3 (47:17):
She has amnesia and on top of that he's gaslighting her,
and on top of that he has imprisoned her. So
it's so many layers.

Speaker 4 (47:25):
Yeah, it's one of the Reddit reviews I was reading
this morning. Was like, no, it was really funny. It's
good comedy. However, you know, you couldn't really make it
today about a guy taking a disabled woman home with it,
And I was like, oh my god, because it's like.

Speaker 1 (47:37):
Yeah, you really couldn't. I mean, but actually they kind
of did. They were like, no, now a woman can
do it to a man.

Speaker 4 (47:43):
That's that's such like an exact thing of being like, well,
we want Ona to have, you know, Goldie's career, so
let's pick one.

Speaker 5 (47:49):
And it's like, don't pick that one.

Speaker 1 (47:52):
I'm sure that this was the cheapest one to remake,
but it was for a reason. Yeah, there's ill. I'm
kind of excited to hear what you thought and like,
what what that was like, Caitlin, because I like, I mean,
this podcast existed through the gender swapped era and like
we we only barely made it, We only barely survived

(48:12):
this era. That just completely missed the point.

Speaker 3 (48:14):
It's so true. Yeah, I'll share my my thoughts on
the remake in a bit, but yeah, in the meantime,
it seems as though Dean and Annie might be developing
some feelings for each other. And then the next day,
Dean and his friend Billy are like working on their

(48:38):
mini golf course idea. Of course, Annie is like, oh,
build the Eiffel Tower, and then she speaks French, and
she's like, wait, why do I know French? That's suspicious, and.

Speaker 1 (48:49):
Then she goes she goes on to completely make his
business for him she's like an architect more thankless labor.

Speaker 3 (48:57):
Yeah, he does credit her the very least.

Speaker 1 (49:01):
Yeah, after he's decided, you know what, I am going
to keep her prisoner forever. That's the only time he
credits her. He's like, I'm going to tell her the truth,
and then it doesn't work, and he's like, all right, well,
I gotta toss her a bone somehow. I guess I'll
admit that she did all the work on this.

Speaker 4 (49:18):
I think we're past the point in the plot though.
But the calamine lotion when she's covering all the kids
from poison was so intensive for it because it was like, what.

Speaker 5 (49:26):
Is that they all look so sickly?

Speaker 4 (49:28):
Yeah, And it was like, so she's medically caring for
these children, but somehow is her fault for them playing
and running outside?

Speaker 5 (49:34):
Like hit after it, we don't.

Speaker 1 (49:36):
Need to repeat it. Hit. It keeps going. Yes, And
then when he almost tells her but then instead he
lies to her about her own birthday, Oh my god.
And then they do sleep together, which you're like, that's evil.
That was the one that was the one thing he
wasn't doing, and then he starts doing it. I talked
about just a lot why are there, Like yeah, like

(49:58):
you're saying, why are there so many beats of like, uh,
it's just it's it's freaky.

Speaker 3 (50:06):
So she has this moment of suspicion about her French speaking,
and then she's suspicious for a different reason a little later,
when Dean goes out one night and he seems to
be lying about where he is, but she discovers that
he's moonlighting at a second job, and this is meant to,
I think, imply that he is being a more responsible

(50:27):
adult than he was before. And then they get financing
to build the mini golf course and she's helping and
it really is starting to feel like Annie is part
of the family, and Dean feels bad about lying to her,
and it seems like he's about to tell her the
truth about how he abducted her and forced her into

(50:50):
a life of domestic labor, but then he bails and
brushes it off as, oh, I forgot your birthday. And
so this is the scene where they have sex, because
you know, he takes her out for her quote unquote
birthday and they have fun and they're vibing and they
kiss and they have sex.

Speaker 1 (51:07):
And then he buys her a washing machine what every
kidnapped woman wants.

Speaker 4 (51:13):
Which is like as if that was her biggest issue
because it hopped at her and it was messing up
before and it was like, hey, I noticed something and
I thought about it on my own and I got
it for you.

Speaker 1 (51:22):
This makes crazier for you to do the labor that
I'm to do. I'm a good guy. You're welcome, babe.
And at this point she's all in, She's like, yes, oh,
thank you, let's have sex again.

Speaker 4 (51:37):
This is very propaganda based then too, because she was
like rich, childless having the time of her life.

Speaker 5 (51:42):
And then it's like, no, she's really happy when she
has a family and purpose and.

Speaker 1 (51:45):
That right, well that's part of it. And it gets
so muddled because like there is some funny class stuff
going on there, but it does imply that like the
life of a childless woman is buying its nature hollow. Yeah, right,
And you're like, oh god, I mean I'm glad that
these these these kids are to be so fucked up.

(52:06):
It's consert truly cooked.

Speaker 4 (52:09):
Yeah, I mean, pee wee kid is clearly neurotive, virgin.
He needs a lot of support. He's not gonna get.

Speaker 1 (52:14):
He's not gonna get it. He's not gonna get help,
Like it's it's lucky that they can all read by
the end of the movie, thanks to the woman their
father kidnapped instead of helping his kids with their homework.

Speaker 5 (52:28):
Yes, so awhile, and we're not even off the boat yet.

Speaker 1 (52:32):
Yeah for a minute. Seven.

Speaker 3 (52:37):
Oh okay. So Annie's aka Joanna's mother has been calling
Joanna's real husband Grant to speak to her, but he
keeps making excuses week after week.

Speaker 1 (52:50):
Husband's name Grant are like.

Speaker 3 (52:52):
This, Oh, well you would know, Janie.

Speaker 1 (52:55):
I would know. I kept I kept calling Grant over
to be like, this is what you're like, and people
are noticing.

Speaker 5 (53:02):
You can scaveage.

Speaker 4 (53:03):
You could screenshot a bunch of things where like Grant
blah blah blah. I've ben send it to him, Grant, Gret.

Speaker 1 (53:08):
Yeah. Meanwhile, I'm falling off a boat like this is
what it feels like.

Speaker 3 (53:13):
But anyway, Joanna's mother is like, let me talk to
my daughter or else I'm gonna chop your dick off.
And so he turns his yacht around and heads back
to where Joanna slash Annie is in Oregon. Meanwhile, Annie
finds a pair of sexy underwear in Dean's truck that
belonged to her from before she lost her memory because

(53:35):
they have her real initials JS on them, but she
doesn't know who that is, so she confronts Dean, thinking
they belong to another woman, and he finally takes this
opportunity to say, those underwear are yours because your name
is Joanna, we were never married, those kids are not yours,

(53:55):
and I've been tricking you this whole time.

Speaker 5 (53:57):
And why is her underwear in his because the hospital
had it.

Speaker 3 (54:02):
Oh, those were like her personal effects us X under underwear, Yes,
Chekhov's underwear.

Speaker 1 (54:10):
Checkoffs, yeah, Checkovs panties, chechos satin Fanny.

Speaker 3 (54:15):
But okay. So he lays out the truth, but for
some reason she does not believe him, and then his
friend Billy covers for him to be like, oh, yeah,
those underwear belonged to some other lady that I'm stupping,
and Joanna is like, sounds right to me. Let's carry
on as we have.

Speaker 1 (54:35):
Been, which is so disappointing because like this. One of
the things I liked about Joanna's character in this like
terrifying scenario is that she always asks questions and then
at this point. Maybe it's like she's just so thoroughly
gaslight that she passively accepts what she's like the most
comfortable thing that she's told, which is like that is

(54:55):
what's happening. That's really scary that like her, it's just like, okay,
so we have effectively killed this woman's spirit.

Speaker 4 (55:04):
We have but also like imagine right, Like it's so
funny because we're like, believe it, you dressed it. But
it's like even if she was like, that's not true,
that's not true. In what world would.

Speaker 5 (55:12):
She fathom that that is what happened? Right? And so
if he said that, it'd be like, oh, he's ill.
That's not good. We're both sick now, Like.

Speaker 1 (55:20):
It's so too good. They did too good a job
of kidnapping her.

Speaker 3 (55:25):
Yeah, you're right, like that that plan is so evil
and unfathomable that who would believe that?

Speaker 5 (55:30):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (55:30):
But yeah, Like to your point, Jamie, one of the
things we know about her is that she's very discerning
and incredulous and where did those qualities go? But true, like,
when you're worn down by emotional abuse and manipulation and gaslighting,
you might lose a sense of yourself.

Speaker 5 (55:48):
So God as metaphor and warning for DV.

Speaker 4 (55:51):
This is incredible movie.

Speaker 1 (55:55):
It's true if you just forget how it ends.

Speaker 5 (55:57):
That's what I mean. It's like a dark if you
look at it as a horror like and.

Speaker 1 (56:01):
Go don't go back like it is it is a
horror movie. Like there I again. It's like, someday we'll
think of something better than the Buchemi test. But like
this whole movie, if you Bouchemi test, this entire movie, like, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope,
it just doesn't. Especially at the end, We're like, oh,
her captor is coming back for her and she wants
to be with him and she's excited, and he's also

(56:23):
brought his children. You're like, oh, honestly he this character
should be in jail.

Speaker 3 (56:29):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay. So the lie keeps going
and Dean professes his love for Annie, and it seems
like she loves him too. But then Annie Slash, Joanna's
real husband shows up, and seeing him jogs Joanna's memory.
She remembers Grant, she remembers her old life and her riches,

(56:54):
and she's like, wait a minute, Dean, why did you
kidnap me and turn me into your wife and mother
of your children? And she's upset about this, but I
would say she is not nearly upset enough.

Speaker 1 (57:06):
Yeah, but this this is a bunch of clunky writing
that Goldie Han is like trying to deliver convincingly, but
it's so abrupt where she's like, oh, this is so
thank you so much for letting me be a mother.
Wait why did you do that? Wait? Wait, I'm upset.
I'm like, we need to be asking more questions. We
need to like call a third party.

Speaker 4 (57:27):
It feels like they It's what's interesting, it feels like
they ran out of time, but not in an edit way.
It's like it's like during the filming, it's like with
the script, like shoot, can you just say it all
right now? Like we don't have any more days to shoot,
like of like there was no work as far as
what they've done before first setup. It was just like
she's struggling with that. Now say it like.

Speaker 3 (57:46):
Right, yeah, They're like, oh god, we're already an hour
and forty minutes into the movie. We got to wrap
this up. But anyway, so she gets in Grant's limo
and leaves and returns to her life of luxury with
Grant and her mother, but now she feels out of place.
She wants beer instead of champagne. She's serving herself and

(58:07):
others rather than letting the servants serve her.

Speaker 1 (58:11):
Class commentary, rich woman drinking beer.

Speaker 5 (58:14):
But she also looks iconic in that look.

Speaker 4 (58:15):
She like easily, gracefully goes back to her beat it
in ensembles.

Speaker 1 (58:19):
Yeah, I think that is the one thing. It seems
like she missed the most, that was the fits and
who can blame her?

Speaker 3 (58:25):
Yes, And so she's also hanging out with the working
class crew on the yacht rather than being around the
wealthy people. And she realizes that she enjoyed her life
with Dean and the kids, and she decides she wants
to go back, and so she has the captain turn

(58:46):
the yacht around, but Grant is like, not on my watch,
so he takes control of the boat. Meanwhile, Dean and
his kids are on their way to get Joanna slash
Annie back via a coastguard boat that's trying to catch
up to the yacht, and Dean and Annie both jump

(59:08):
overboard that's again the name of the movie, and they
swim to each other and they kiss, kiss, kiss, and
she's like, by the way, all of that money, it's mine,
So don't worry. We're still rich. Now get me gregnant
with a little girl, you virile man, And that's the

(59:28):
end of the movie.

Speaker 4 (59:29):
That's the end of the well we also they also
identify themselves as a great love epic because in their
like connective he had told her the story of the
sailor lost at sea with our tour and Katerina, and
sometimes the sailors can hear them, the lovers calling each
other's names. Oh yeah, And so then they're screaming to
each other from their boats Arturo.

Speaker 1 (59:49):
And they're like, come on, I like, we don't. It's
introduced way too late in the movie for this day,
I do late. And also he tells her about it
at the birth he made up for her.

Speaker 3 (01:00:01):
Oh yeah, So let's take another quick break and we
will come back to discuss. Okay, we're back, We're back
on board. Okay, we're ready.

Speaker 1 (01:00:21):
Is there a place that you would like to start? Where? Where?
Where do we begin? Where do we begin? Here?

Speaker 4 (01:00:25):
I love I love the way we've been dancing throughout
and in my thing is I would love from your perspective,
because objectively, I think it's important to acknowledge that in
any argument or convincing or theme or.

Speaker 5 (01:00:39):
Theory, it is a horrible, horrible, horrible premise.

Speaker 4 (01:00:43):
It is objectively, even for scooball just a actual man
taking a woman and like assaulting. Like like, I think
that's such an important start point where you go, like,
because I can absolutely get this to a place where
it is an important, important feminist that is teaching us
and helping us.

Speaker 5 (01:01:01):
In many ways.

Speaker 4 (01:01:03):
But I would say, okay, I would like to start
in a space where I think of this a lot
as I think of you know, we say oparate art
from artists. If you watch this creeps thing, can you
do this? And I think certain actors in the reverse
make it okay? So, like I think of James Marsters
as Spike in Buffy. Spike is pretty vile character in

(01:01:24):
many ways, including like assaulting Buffy, But because James Marsters
brings himself to it's charming, it's so forgivable, you so
want him to win. I think Goldie Han and Kurt Russell,
their relationship is maybe the only reason we're talking about
it still.

Speaker 3 (01:01:41):
Yeah, which is kind of the premise of the Bouchemi
test or whatever other name we'll decide to have for it,
where if it's not an incredibly charming person or people
in the cast.

Speaker 1 (01:01:53):
Or just like a a when it's like the failure
of calling it the buchemy host is Steve BUSHEMI is
hot and we love him, but a Steve Buschevy, if
a Steve Buschevy type character is doing everything Kurt Russell
is doing, the movie doesn't work and it's a horror movie. Yeah, yeah,
I definitely agree with what you're both saying, where it's
just like this movie in spite of itself, Like there

(01:02:17):
were parts that I enjoyed, but it was strictly because
the cast is so charming and really not anything else.
There was some and then there's like some funny screwball
style one off lines. I was shocked to learn that
a woman had written this movie. This movie was written
by Leslie Dixon, who I like, I really love a

(01:02:38):
lot of her work. She wrote Lindsay Lohan Freaky Friday.
She wrote Missus Doubtfire.

Speaker 4 (01:02:45):
I'm sorry the whole disembodiment and identity tropes and her
shit is crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:02:49):
Then, like her catalog is totally full of like, I'm like,
what she and her therapist must have a wild time,
because I noticed that too.

Speaker 3 (01:02:57):
She as wrote Hairspray two thousand and seven.

Speaker 5 (01:03:00):
Yeah, I saw that.

Speaker 4 (01:03:01):
That was one of the only things I saw in
theaters multiple times. Oh wow, I'm not a musical theater kid.

Speaker 5 (01:03:06):
I just fucking loved it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:07):
It was really I really love that movie. Yeah, I mean,
like she she does like this is a premise she
excels in. But this was one of her first credits,
and I just I mean, she has talked about it since,
and I think that there's a lot of people who
were fans of this movie when it came out that
sort of defend it now, and Leslie Dixon understandably is

(01:03:31):
one of those people. But she sort of says the
same thing that everyone says. Where like Reese Witherspoon loved
this movie as a kid, and like Kate Hudson loves
this movie, I wonder why.

Speaker 5 (01:03:41):
I love my mom's movie like I love my Mommy.

Speaker 1 (01:03:45):
That cannot be the argument for this movie. Is I
love my mommy like I do too, And if she
was an overboard I guess I would like it.

Speaker 5 (01:03:51):
Yeah, I love my Mommy.

Speaker 1 (01:03:52):
Test well, can I criticize this movie if their daughter
loves their mommy, I don't know. But but Leslie Dixon
kind of says something similar where she's like, oh, well,
you know, like when she was interviewed during the second
wave of this movie when the reboot came out, which

(01:04:12):
she also co wrote that, she was just like, well,
you know, Kurt Russell and Goldie Honk are the most
charming people in the entire world. She said, quote, this
is twenty seventeen. She's a quote. I was daunted from
the get go by the idea that the amnesia was
a central plot device. I thought that was hokey, but
I was in no position to complain. Someone was paying
me to write a screenplay, so this also was something

(01:04:32):
she was being paid to write. It was more of
a contract writer O thing that's real, which I think
does sort of put it into context a little more.
But I'm also like, no offense to Leslie Dixon, but
surely we could have come up with a less scary
version of this premise, like I've seen less scary versions
of this premis.

Speaker 4 (01:04:51):
Or we could have justified it so many different ways,
or like not had them have sex.

Speaker 1 (01:04:56):
Right, right, Yeah, I mean, I guess should we just
sort of like run down the scary thing because it's
like we've been whatever, we've been working around it. But like, yeah,
all of the ways that Kurt Russell's character is villain is,
you know, he is like he's kidnapped this woman. He
you know, is functionally like making.

Speaker 3 (01:05:19):
Her his like domestic servant.

Speaker 1 (01:05:22):
It's fucked up and to the point where it's referenced
in dialogue as a joke in one of the most
diabolical jokes I think in the in the script where
he's singing zippity dooda, zippity a, my, oh my, I
got a wonderful slave, which is first of all, what
and also just the context of how Americans use the

(01:05:44):
term slave and slavery, using zippity dooda, which is canonically
by a character who is enslaved.

Speaker 4 (01:05:52):
Like as he's also going to pretend to work, he's
like singing to himself getting into his truck to then
go not.

Speaker 1 (01:05:58):
Work, and you're like this he's the guy that we
have to root for by the end, Like why is
he's so overtly villainous in a way that I don't understand,
Like he's just not sympathetic at all, to the point
where I don't know, and I guess like at the
time that wasn't as true, but like watching it with
today goggles, it's just like, yeah, he's a piece of shit,

(01:06:20):
which also seems to be like reinforcing a lot of
the tropes that were presented with him. But then there's
a lot of like you're saying though, like Gary Marshall
is master of tropes, but like it's I feel like
he's using his powers for evil in this one a
little bit. Because we are presented with these familiar stock characters,
I think we get like kind of a stock working

(01:06:42):
class character. With Kurt Russell, we also get a stock
but in this movie all of the stereotypes based around
working class people are just true of like he drinks
too much. I mean, it's like come And at some
points Kurt Russell is stating these himself to manipulate Goldie Han,

(01:07:03):
where he's saying like he's lying about her parents. He's like, oh,
your mother died of alcoholism and your father's in prison.
Two like broad stereotypes about poor people. But in the meantime,
he's committing a crime the whole movie, and he's out
drinking all the time. So it's not even like they're
like the movie isn't pushing back on these tropes at all.

(01:07:23):
They're like, yeah, these and in this world these tropes
are true.

Speaker 3 (01:07:26):
He's doing them. Also, just the tropes of like poor
people are slobbish and dirty and their house is unkempt,
and they're grifters. They're going to trick people any opportunity
they get, that they can't take care of their children,
that they're not very smart, Like all of these tropes
are present. But then the movie also doesn't like rich people, right.

(01:07:49):
It shows the rich characters for being elitist, entitled, cruel assholes.
So the movie is all over the place with class.

Speaker 1 (01:07:59):
It just kind of hates everybody.

Speaker 3 (01:08:01):
Right, But like, I think the movie the best I
can figure as far as I think we're meant to
understand that what he is doing to Joanna slash Annie
is wrong, but I think the movie wants us to
be like, well, it's okay because she's getting her come

(01:08:24):
up and for being so horrible and entitled and rich
and classist to him, so she's kind of getting what
she deserves. Yeah, which, as we've pointed out, like yeah,
It's one thing to like want to collect the money
that's owed to you for the labor you did for someone.

(01:08:44):
It's another thing to abduct someone and force them into
a life of domestic labor and mistreat them the whole
time and have sex with them when the consent is very,
very very murky, like.

Speaker 1 (01:09:00):
I think she cannot give, she can't give, you can't give,
like it's it's no great.

Speaker 5 (01:09:04):
But I also think they have such a disdain. So
I think you're right in the.

Speaker 4 (01:09:09):
Attempt to make equal evils this sort of double negative.
But I think also at the time, if we think
about the tropes of rich people in media at the eighties,
like they were just inherently evil. So I do think
that added more value to those scales of bad, of
being equally bad, But it completely missed the fact that

(01:09:29):
on an individual basis, this man is evil and it
almost didn't like it is at the threshold of camp.

Speaker 5 (01:09:37):
It is so close.

Speaker 4 (01:09:38):
If they had amped everything up, we would have been
in a magical world where it is farce and ridiculous.
But we didn't get there. It just kept trying to
ground itself. So you can't necessarily authentically justify some of
the caricatures.

Speaker 5 (01:09:51):
Because it didn't stay that way. It wasn't consistent.

Speaker 1 (01:09:54):
Yeah, I feel like Edward Herban is in that world,
but he's kind of alone there. I agree, he's playing
like camp rich guy. He nailed Yeah, oh he killed it.
But like Kurt Russell is like giving just a grounded
enough performance that like not everyone is doing that, like
you're saying, and like the kids are acting like more
normal than I've seen kids act in a movie in

(01:10:16):
a while, Like they're just acting like kids. But then
like Goldiehan, I think starts as a camp performance, like
when she's doing Rich, she's doing camp. But like when
she becomes Annie or she's forced to become Annie, it
feels like things change. I yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:10:35):
Well, Also, again, the way this movie handles class is
all over the place, but it seems to want to.
It seems to have the agenda of trying to make
some kind of class commentary as far as because we
see Joanna realize how classist and abusive she has been
to the people who work for her.

Speaker 1 (01:10:55):
And she apologized.

Speaker 3 (01:10:57):
She does I would say, she does not adequately apologize,
but she cries. But now that she has lived life
on the other side of the class divide. She has
a better understanding now of labor and what it is
to live in poverty, and I think the movie is
trying to be like, well, this rich woman who we

(01:11:20):
hated at the beginning and who got what she deserved
by being human trafficked, she learned her lesson, but ultimately
what lesson will she actually end up learning, because she
reveals at the end of the movie that her wealth
is hers, not her husband's, so she will still live
a fabulously wealthy life with Dean and these children that

(01:11:42):
I guess she's going to adopt.

Speaker 1 (01:11:43):
Well, I think that like kind of neither of these people. Well,
I do think that she grows. I think she does growths,
but like, I agree that like the fantasy ending kind
of undercuts like her newfound appreciation for labor and what
poor people experience. But it's also like this movie's version
of poor people that also like it's like her, it's

(01:12:08):
just also muddled where it's like part of her learning
about the value of labor is her accepting the misogyny
she receives at home, and you're like, well, that doesn't
feel good exactly right, where it's not like she's like
and now like there's never an it would be a
totally different thing, less campy, but like a totally different thing.
If like Kurt Russell's character whatever I mean, regardless, he

(01:12:31):
would have kidnapped her. But if he had been like, oh, like,
you have to contribute to the house, like there's a
division of labor, but he's he's not doing that. He is,
so she is appreciating that most people have to clean
up their own house and cook their own food and
do all this basic stuff, but he's not contributing to that.

(01:12:51):
So there's also this underlying misogyny to the quote unquote
lesson she learns, well.

Speaker 4 (01:12:57):
Also, I feel, I genuinely feel like this thing he
keeps showing its cards in its attempt to congratulate itself,
because ending with her being rich and being able to
support is an attempt at a feminist switched instead of
going back to this po dunk kids like where mom,
she still gets to be glamorous and gorgeous and is
empowered because it's her money.

Speaker 5 (01:13:17):
It's a girl.

Speaker 4 (01:13:18):
Boss, and so to me, that is an attempt But
recognizing that they're like, hey, you thought we were grossed,
don't worry, we're not, and they were.

Speaker 1 (01:13:28):
Right, You're like, it doesn't quite Yeah, I think with
that in my like, it does get there. I was surprised,
just because the eighties were so full of like, this
movie does feel extra creepy even given the time, which which,
to be fair, I was looking at original reviews of
the movie. A lot of people felt at the time,
They're like, this is a really creepy setup for a movie.
I think it probably contributed to its lack of, you know,

(01:13:51):
financial success, in spite of starring a very famous couple.
At the time, it was not reviewed particularly well, except
by Roger Ebert, who I could never down to save
my life.

Speaker 5 (01:14:02):
That guy is so weird but just truly.

Speaker 1 (01:14:05):
You cannot predict what he's gonna say. But you know,
when it came out, it was like reviewed very mixed,
where they were like, not only is this a clunky
attempt to revive the scruball comedy, it's also creepier than
most screwball comedies made fifty years ago, which I would
agree with. Yeah, I mean, but it just it feels

(01:14:25):
weirdly conservative even for the time. Because when I think
of like eighties movies with white girl protagonists, I'm thinking
of movies like Working Girl. I'm thinking about movies where
women having jobs are central to the plot, even if
women having jobs is supposed to be this regressive, like oh,
she's too ambitious, she's like you think about the shoulder pads.

(01:14:48):
You're thinking about Like a lot of chopes around eighties women,
I feel like was especially like eighties White Women, was
built into the idea that now women are working outside
of the home, and I you have like a scary
version of that, like fatal attraction and like women are
waiting later to have children, or.

Speaker 5 (01:15:08):
Or a normal version like in Decent Proposal exactly.

Speaker 1 (01:15:12):
But it's like this movie is like just going this
very conservative route by like suggesting that it's okay to
be like I don't know. Yeah, the ending is so
messy because you're like, Okay, she's she has her girl
boss riches, but like she's still not going to work,
Like she doesn't have an ambition. It's heavily implied by
the movie that her life is inherently empty because she

(01:15:35):
doesn't have a child. Like there's just all of these
very conservative implications that feel even conservative for the eighties.

Speaker 3 (01:15:43):
For sure, and then the boggling question of why does
She want to go back to a man who she
knows that for weeks manipulated her, lied to her, treated
her badly, forced her to do all this labor like
what compel and then she's to relate.

Speaker 1 (01:16:01):
To him, not just and then she's like, I like
the name Annie, Actually let's keep it. You're like, well,
I I don't know, I don't know.

Speaker 5 (01:16:10):
I'm realizing as we're talking.

Speaker 4 (01:16:11):
I feel like this a little bit suffers from what
I call the House of Gucci effect.

Speaker 5 (01:16:16):
Where every character was in a different movie.

Speaker 4 (01:16:20):
So like Jared Leito was like Mario, and then you know,
you had Adam Driver doing like a grand thing and
Lady Gaga in a totally different film, and so it
feels like some of them were like, I get it,
it's totally camp, let's go crazy. Some of them were like,
this is my oscar. Some of them were like all right,
and it's just nobody was on the same page.

Speaker 1 (01:16:40):
Yeah. It is very all over the place, like even
down to like a certain creating, like and I'm a
Gary Marshall fan that like, I don't really think he
killed it on this one, because it's like even the
directorial choices feel a little bit uncertain where it's like
the music, even though I was just like roasting it
for just being annoying, but it also like you're like,

(01:17:01):
what version of this?

Speaker 3 (01:17:02):
It's like lisant. It's very feels.

Speaker 1 (01:17:04):
Dissonant with like what the movie is, where you're like,
why are we getting this like silly, this silly soundtrack
when a woman has been kidnapped.

Speaker 5 (01:17:14):
Because it's kind of funny.

Speaker 1 (01:17:16):
It's kind of funny. It's so it's it's really confusing.
I don't Yeah, I guess it's like, ultimately, I don't
really know what the movie is trying to tell us.
Not that it's like the job of a movie to
teach us something, but this movie wants us to be
taking something away.

Speaker 3 (01:17:31):
I just am not sure what it is, something about class,
but it doesn't stick. The landing. Yeah, to touch on
the reductive way that bodies and fatness is discussed in
this movie. The thing here is that Dean has his
children buy some dresses for Annie, but they buy ones

(01:17:54):
that are too big because they're children and they don't
know how adult clothing sizes.

Speaker 1 (01:17:59):
Work, and it's become a hilarious bit. Yeah, so won't
stop coming up.

Speaker 3 (01:18:04):
Which is that Dean makes up a story about how
Annie used to be fat and that's why these dresses
of hers are too big for her, and Annie seems
disgusted at the thought that she used to be fat.
There are jokes made about it by multiple characters. Also,
this seems to happen a lot in Goldiehn movies. Because

(01:18:25):
I'm thinking of death becomes her, her weight fluctuates, and
a lot of reductive jokes are made about, like her
losing and gaining weight.

Speaker 1 (01:18:35):
Also, I think it's just like this is very of
the times. I mean not to dismiss it because it
is egregious, but like I almost put the fat shaming
elements of this movie in the same category as the
like how old am I You're twenty nine? Like these
sort of like lazy susan of heavily recycled Joe about

(01:19:01):
things that you're being told by the movie. If you
are a woman, you need to feel insecure about this.
It like ties into OPRAH culture, like you're like you
should feel insecure and constantly unsurveillance and possibly disgusted by
your own size and age.

Speaker 4 (01:19:18):
Like well, there's also always this threat like a woman
isn't able to change for good or change or let
a perversion die because you can't change, for you can't
get old.

Speaker 5 (01:19:27):
But also it was that trope of.

Speaker 4 (01:19:29):
Like the looming wall, you might get fat again, so
you can't trust that the people like you for being hot.
Blah blah blah, you might get fat. It was like
that always might come back. So then women were disgusted
by having been a different weight, and like it was
just constantly a trap of your identity has to maintain
this way or no one will love you.

Speaker 1 (01:19:47):
And it's still something that like very much happens in
movies now. I just feel like that the tropes have
like mutated, not really improved over the years, where now
it's like a romantic hero will say I don't care,
like I don't care what you look like, while clearly
pointing out a woman's size, as opposed to what this
movie is doing, which is just straight up like again

(01:20:10):
just one of Kurt Russell's very villainous qualities where he
was like, oh, yeah, you used to be disgusting to
me because you were fat, and then you you go
through all you go back through like the layers of
the like that this is all just a part of
him gaslighting her. So she remains under his control.

Speaker 4 (01:20:28):
It's just it wasn't the photoshop photo too, like she
was a PreCure, was fat in it?

Speaker 3 (01:20:33):
Like no, it's so I was trying to make sense
to this. Here's what I've concluded.

Speaker 1 (01:20:38):
I thought she was supposed to be pregnant in this photos.

Speaker 3 (01:20:40):
Yes, so it's not. It's clearly a photo of his
first wife, who is the actual mother to children.

Speaker 1 (01:20:48):
You're like, did he hate this lady?

Speaker 3 (01:20:51):
Like like it really did, but it's it's a photo
of him and her, but instead of because you know
now deceased wife's head, his friend Billy photoshopped Goldie Han's
head onto it. And it's like, yeah, this is a
photo from back when you were fat, but it's that
she's pregnant. It's still a thin person when that person

(01:21:13):
was pregnant. And she's just like, yep, looks yeah, that
tracks for me. That makes sense, And that's supposed to
be a joke. Yeah, but obviously it's horrible.

Speaker 1 (01:21:24):
Does not work. It's just like it's it doesn't work
on so many levels that it's like where do you
even begin because it is like this fat phobic runner
that takes place throughout the movie and also just the
implications around again, I'm just like, why didn't they make
the writing choice to have her be someone who ran
out on them, someone who kurt Russell being hostile towards

(01:21:47):
would make sense? Yeah, because his hostility, his ostensible hostility
towards his deceased wife, only goes to make his character
even more despicable, Like it's awful. It's awful how he acts.

Speaker 4 (01:22:03):
I always like, that's like such a because it's not
a storyline. It's such a forgotten part of it that
I'm like, oh, yeah, completely erased.

Speaker 1 (01:22:10):
She's simply gone.

Speaker 3 (01:22:12):
No one seems affected by the absence of this.

Speaker 1 (01:22:17):
This Steva woman, Like are I pitched this woman who
ostensibly died in her thirties?

Speaker 5 (01:22:22):
Like yeah, that's dark.

Speaker 1 (01:22:23):
No one cares. No one in this movie cares except
her children.

Speaker 6 (01:22:28):
Who don't necessarily who they kind of like they're doing
there like kid wise where they're like sometimes moms leave,
And I was like, do they not know she died
or is this like I don't know, it's just all
very it's all It just made me really sad for everyone.

Speaker 1 (01:22:45):
And Anna hate kur Russell's character because it seems like
he's recycling yeah, recycling photos of her, recycling anecdotes from
her life, but in a way that just like never
comes full circle, so it just ends up coming off
as like pretty mean totally. There's a version of this
movie where I feel like the script tries to convince
you he's doing all of this because he hasn't processed

(01:23:08):
his wife's death, which would be like stupid, but at
least would be an attempt at.

Speaker 5 (01:23:14):
It's all fanfic. Anything we do here is fanfic.

Speaker 3 (01:23:18):
Well, speaking of other versions of this movie, yeah, well
quick note, this movie has been remade in various other countries.
I have not seen any of those remakes, but there's
one from South Korea, there's one from India. There I
think is a Russian TV series with this premise, So

(01:23:41):
this makes sense. It's a very like it's high concept.

Speaker 1 (01:23:44):
It's high concept, but it works in any culture.

Speaker 3 (01:23:47):
Really exactly universal. Yeah, but I'm talking, of course about
the gender Swapped remake from twenty eighteen, which I did
watch last night, and I will.

Speaker 1 (01:23:58):
Say sorry about that.

Speaker 3 (01:24:01):
Here's the thing. I liked it better than the original.
That might be controversial to say. I think it addresses
a lot of the issues that we're having not perfectly.
It doesn't necessarily correct them, but it handles them a
little better.

Speaker 1 (01:24:17):
Okay, say more, say more.

Speaker 3 (01:24:19):
Well, especially the class issue, I would say, it's not
quite so all over the place regarding class, and it
doesn't lean into as many tropes about poor people. So
the premise of this one, it's basically the same, except
it's a working class woman tricks a rich man with

(01:24:40):
amnesia into thinking that he is her husband and father
to her three children. It stars Anna Faris and Euchenio d'rbez,
who play characters named Kate and Leonardo. Oh do you
mean Kate Wenda and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Speaker 4 (01:25:00):
It feels like also like such an ai bought of
a time when it was like girls are and minorities,
but then it's at the same time, you're like making
the minority of like a victim of this white woman.

Speaker 5 (01:25:10):
Like it's like it's like.

Speaker 3 (01:25:10):
Right, right, the optics are trash.

Speaker 1 (01:25:13):
That's why none of these gender swap reboots work where
you're just like, okay, so you're like the problem was
the premise. The premise was the issue. It's not that
like we needed a more inclusive version of this horrible premise.

Speaker 3 (01:25:29):
No, we do need the gender swapped, all black cast
of what women want.

Speaker 4 (01:25:35):
Yeah, that's my favorite conceit as if we don't know
what men think, right.

Speaker 1 (01:25:42):
Anyway, they're so inscrutable to us, and yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:25:46):
So mysterious. But the remake follows a lot of the
same beats, but the class thing is handled I think better,
where the Leonardo character he is not only made to
do like domestic labor, but also starts working as a
you know, working class blue collar construction worker, doing the

(01:26:08):
type of labor that he used to exploit as a
rich person, and doing labor for a rich man who
doesn't treat him or his coworkers well. So he gets
an even clearer and better understanding of labor exploitation and
like sees things from the other side in a way
that I think the original movie attempts to do but
again doesn't really work out. The ending of this one's

(01:26:32):
also like and he is rich also the whole time
because he inherits his yacht and it's worth sixty million
dollars whatever, blah blah blah.

Speaker 4 (01:26:40):
Was that the only way they mentioned in the overboard part,
like how do they keep the yacht tro No.

Speaker 3 (01:26:44):
The yacht is still so Anna faris. They meet because
she goes onto his yacht to clean the carpets because
she's a carpet cleaner as well as a pizza delivery person. Right,
But they still meet on a yacht. There's still a
lot of people falling over board, jumping overboard, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:27:02):
I mean, that's that's what gets people in the scene,
because we want to see famous people off the boat.

Speaker 3 (01:27:09):
So the movies are basically the same, aside from the
gender swappedness of it all. I do think I like
the remake better, but not because it's good.

Speaker 5 (01:27:19):
Do you like it in contrast?

Speaker 1 (01:27:20):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (01:27:20):
Okay, Do you like it in contrast to the first?
Or is its own thing?

Speaker 3 (01:27:24):
I would say probably in contrast to the first, But
I've already kind of memory hold both films, so I
don't really know. But that's kind of all I had
to say about these movies. Does anyone have anything else
they'd like to talk about?

Speaker 1 (01:27:43):
No? I think the last thing that I this sort
of dove taels into the Bechtel test of the Really
only two women that speak are Joanna as Annie talking
to Adele Burbridge. Can we get a full name for it?
The principle of the school of another fun performance and
another character that is just all over the place where

(01:28:05):
like she's ultimately wrong. She has good but but you know,
the only communication that we really get between women in
this story that is very dominated by men and white
men at that and like, I know we're in Oregon,
but this is ridiculous, but is like it is a
contentious it's an argument. They're like the only two women

(01:28:26):
who speak in this movie are in an argument.

Speaker 3 (01:28:29):
She also talks to her mom on the phone.

Speaker 1 (01:28:31):
She does, that's true, that's.

Speaker 3 (01:28:32):
About but I think it's mostly about her husband and
her husband wanting to ngregnate her.

Speaker 1 (01:28:38):
So yeah, no, that their conversation unfortunately does not pass
the Bechel's test. I mean, there might be like a
one off between them that does, when she is drinking
beer in front of her mom, but like, oh sure,
the main conversations are yeah, between heard her mom about
her husband or the one that passes the Bugel test
is about how standardized testing is fucking children it up,

(01:29:00):
which is true, and then it goes back to the kids.

Speaker 4 (01:29:02):
Does it pass though, because she's talking about the kids
that she has been stockholmed to care for as a
mother for a man.

Speaker 3 (01:29:08):
I see your point.

Speaker 1 (01:29:09):
I usually give kids a pass. Yeah, but also there
are aggressively sons.

Speaker 4 (01:29:18):
But no, but I mean like not that, I mean
like it truly like translated, probably not about the children,
Like she's talking about the children that this man has
forced her to It is like the trauma still connected
to the husband, like do you know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (01:29:30):
Yeah, and she does say like you and your husband
are not good at rearing children.

Speaker 4 (01:29:36):
Right, because she'd never be having this conversation if this
man had not put her in a situation to take
care of his fit kids.

Speaker 3 (01:29:43):
I'm fine with saying this movie does at least spiritual
does not.

Speaker 1 (01:29:47):
It's not a feminist movie. Yeah, so let's get.

Speaker 4 (01:29:50):
To this just feels like I don't know if you
guys have this. It feels like an Oreo pass, you
know how, like oreos are vegan.

Speaker 1 (01:29:56):
I love that.

Speaker 4 (01:29:57):
Yeah, take that because it feels like an Oreo fan.
We're technically I think it might, but it doesn't.

Speaker 1 (01:30:02):
But like, no, it doesn't. Yeah, I love that.

Speaker 3 (01:30:05):
That's hilarious. Yeah, let's go with that. The one true
metric is the Bechdel cast nipple scale, of course, where
we rate the movie on a scale of zero to
five nipples, examining it through an intersectional feminist lens. I'm
gonna go ahead and give this zero nipples, as I
foreshadowed earlier, based on everything we talked about, just the

(01:30:26):
evil aura of this film. I appreciate that it's trying
to talk about class, but again doesn't really do it well.
Zero nipples, So I have no nipples to award or
give out.

Speaker 1 (01:30:40):
Yeah, I'm meeting you there. Zero nipples. Really cannot do more.
I think the Goldiehan performance is really fun. I love Goldiehan,
but there's so many other Goldiehan movies to watch in
the world, and I'm grateful for that. Yeah, zero nipples
for all the reasons we discussed and probably some we
forgot about. Oh many. Yeah, what do you think?

Speaker 4 (01:31:04):
I and I know, I think this might subvert the metric,
But I think one nipple only because what it has
been used for, its collective reception and this sort of
affirming in society.

Speaker 5 (01:31:17):
That that is bad.

Speaker 4 (01:31:19):
So it does feel like as a feminist sort of
exercise outside of itself. I'll give it one because of
its relationship to the world.

Speaker 3 (01:31:29):
Fair. Hell, yeah, nice, Thank you so much for joining
us for this discussion.

Speaker 4 (01:31:33):
But I say I'm so upset that I have to
skid atle because I feel like I genuinely think we
could dive in and we can teach a course.

Speaker 5 (01:31:41):
There's so much in this one movie.

Speaker 3 (01:31:43):
I know, really well, come back for the remake, Oh
my god, saw another Time, or.

Speaker 1 (01:31:49):
Another movie or another movie. I don't have to cover
the remak.

Speaker 4 (01:31:52):
I'll let you know if I watch it and I
might be stressed. I'm grateful you did.

Speaker 3 (01:31:57):
We'll tell us where people can follow your work, follow
you online, et cetera.

Speaker 4 (01:32:02):
Yes, I would love for people to listen to my podcast,
and I would love for both of you to be
on called Worse Than You with Mofry Passk, where I
talk about people's creative process.

Speaker 5 (01:32:12):
And how they make things, but in a way that
is not like I get up I write this.

Speaker 4 (01:32:16):
It's the more abstract efforts that holistically create us. And
what makes us proud is artists and our themes, et cetera.

Speaker 5 (01:32:24):
And I think I.

Speaker 4 (01:32:25):
Would love if you, guys, we'd love to talk about
the themes of Leslie, because this woman's themes we could
go down psychologically crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:32:34):
Hell yeah, yeah, specifically body swap and like dissociative all disembodiment. Incredible.

Speaker 3 (01:32:42):
I don't forget she wrote limitless so shut up.

Speaker 1 (01:32:46):
Yeah, oh it's do.

Speaker 3 (01:32:47):
You not know about the Limitless Pillar movie with Bradley
Cooper and he takes cocaine or something and it.

Speaker 5 (01:32:53):
Makes it's every ADHD's dream this movie.

Speaker 1 (01:32:56):
Yeah, incredible.

Speaker 3 (01:32:57):
It's not a very good movie, but it has a
concept premise.

Speaker 5 (01:33:01):
It does.

Speaker 4 (01:33:01):
It's like Lucy where it's like I've unlocked the extra
hundred percent of my brain and now I see the world.

Speaker 1 (01:33:08):
Yeah. Yeah, god, Okay, Well, I look forward to more
of Laslie Sport. I mean genuinely consider myself a fan.
Just this is this one did not hit. That's what
did not hit.

Speaker 4 (01:33:19):
But yeah, listening to my pod folks, I listened watch
Watch Overboard. But I'm so happy to've been on this.
I thank you, guys. This is so fun.

Speaker 1 (01:33:28):
No, thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:33:29):
Come back anytime and you can follow us on Instagram
as well as our Patreon aka Matreon, where we release
two bonus episodes every single month, always on an incredible, genius,
amazing theme, as well as access to the back catalog

(01:33:50):
of well over one hundred bonus episodes all for five
dollars a month at patreon dot com. Slash Bechdel Cast.

Speaker 1 (01:33:59):
Absolutely and until then, let's jump overboard, but not to
Kurt Russell to swim the other way. We're swimming the
other way. Goodbye bye. The Bechdel Cast is a production
of iHeartMedia, hosted and produced by Me, Jamie Loftus and.

Speaker 3 (01:34:22):
Me Caitlyn Dorante. The podcast is also produced by Sophie
Lichtermann and.

Speaker 1 (01:34:27):
Edited by Caitlyn Dorante. Ever heard of them? That's me?

Speaker 3 (01:34:31):
And our logo and merch and all of our artwork,
in fact are designed by Jamie Loftus, Ever heard of her?

Speaker 1 (01:34:38):
Oh my God? And our theme song, by the way,
was composed by Mike Kaplan.

Speaker 3 (01:34:43):
With vocals by Katherine Voskrasinski.

Speaker 1 (01:34:45):
Iconic and a special thanks to the one and only
Aristotle Acevedo.

Speaker 3 (01:34:50):
For more information about the podcast, please visit linktree Slash
Bechdel Cast