February 25, 2025 • 54 mins
It's the karmic credit plan: buy now, pay forever.
Tracie shares her deep thoughts about the 1991 Kenneth Branagh film Dead Again on this week’s episode. Branagh brought intelligence, style, and some pretension to this noir homage that tells the tragic love story of Roman and Margaret Strauss–who have apparently been reincarnated as Mike Church and the amnesiac Jane Doe he calls Grace. While the movie hits all the right mystery beats while you’re watching, Branagh’s story insists on false binaries that do the audience’s thinking for them. And despite being the romantic lead, the character of Mike makes it entirely clear why so many women would choose the bear.
Put away the scissors and put on your headphones, because this is for you…
This episode was edited by Resonate Recordings.
Our theme music is "Professor Umlaut" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
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We are Tracie Guy-Decker and Emily Guy Birken, known to our family as the Guy Girls.
We have super-serious day jobs. For the bona fides, visit our individual websites: tracieguydecker.com and emilyguybirken.com
We're hella smart and completely unashamed of our overthinking prowess. We love movies and tv, science fiction, comedy, and murder mysteries, good storytelling with lots of dramatic irony, and analyzing pop culture for gender dynamics, psychology, sociology, and whatever else we find.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
She says I'm afraid of you, Mike, which is a
vulnerable thing to say.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Yes and brave, very brave Because and that shows
trust also because if she didn'ttrust him, she would pretend
everything was fine and figureout a way to get out.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Have you ever had something you love dismissed
because it's just pop culture?
What others might deem stupidshit, you know matters.
You know it's worth talking andthinking about, and so do we.
So come overthink with us as wedelve into our deep thoughts
about stupid shit.
I'm Tracy Geidecker and you'relistening to Deep Thoughts About
(00:39):
Stupid Shit, because popculture is still culture, and
shouldn't you know what's inyour head?
On today's episode, I will besharing my deep thoughts about
the 1991 Kenneth Branagh filmDead, again with my sister,
emily Guy-Burken, and with you.
So let's dive in Em.
I know you saw this movie.
I think we saw it together.
We did.
We saw it in the theatertogether.
(01:00):
But tell me what you rememberabout Dead.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Again, I had a crush on kath brana from this film.
I'm not roman, uh-huh uh,scissors yep, there's a gender
swap reincarnation thing, andgosh.
So I I will tell you a fewyears later, because that came
out when I was 12.
So when I was, I was working myfirst job at Joan and Gary's
(01:23):
Original Bagel Bakery in OwingsMills, maryland.
Terrible place to work.
But, there was a guy who camethrough the line one day when I
was working the register andthere was something about him
where I was like this guy likeI'm 15, this guy was an adult
not my type.
There was something about himwhere I'm like I'm really
attracted to this guy.
Why and I realized a fewminutes later his mannerisms
(01:49):
reminded me of the characterthat Branagh plays in this film,
and he was also.
He was blonde as well, butanyway.
So that's what comes up when Ithink about this film, and I
know there's probably more inthere but that's it.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
So tell me, why are we talking about it today?
Both female leads becausethere's two stories was
Branagh's wife at the time thatthey were married, like I
remember loving that?
There was like a real liferomance between the two of them
that you know and that I thoughtthat was some I don't know.
It felt really significant tome at the time and so it popped
(02:38):
up on our list and I decided todo it.
Now it was like it's a littlebit of a you know, we try to mix
it up, so it's not all comediesor all whatever, and so this is
like the psychological thriller.
So that's part of why I justsaid it was time for a different
genre, but specifically KennethBranagh and Emma Thompson and
sort of the romance between them, which they're now divorced and
have been for many years.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
I wanted to sort of look back at the romance and see
if that holds up.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
She's married to willoughby from um sense and
sensibility.
Now, who's younger than her?
Is she she?
I didn't know that.
Yeah, so I loved him as heloved me.
Sorry, that's what I think I'mdoing.
I think of willoughby, okay, soI really wanted to look at the
romance and like, just wascurious.
It looms large in myimagination as smart that's,
(03:29):
like the.
It was a smart movie but alsostill very entertaining.
So I was just curious if itholds up.
So that's why it's on there, soit's not like a super deep
sentimental reason the way someof our movies are.
But I thought it could be a funlook back and mostly I do want
to talk about actually thestorytelling and some of the
(03:52):
choices that are made for thestorytelling and also I do want
to talk about the romance inboth stories between these two
characters and what I may havebeen kind of internalizing from
them and sort of the smart pieceof it too, like I think
sometimes the discernmentbetween genuinely smart and
(04:15):
elegant and like pretentious,for me in particular can
sometimes be a complicatednuance that I'm not always up to
the challenge, especially in1991 when I was 15.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Yeah, 15.
And so I have opinions aboutKenneth Branagh as Hercule
Poirot, for that very reason.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Strong opinions.
I actually sort of think myoverall sense of Branagh is part
of actually why I bring that upin general, because I think
Brana has a hard time discerningbetween smart and pretentious.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
So I also wanted to mention because we've talked
before about why I became aFrench major and you know, 40%
of it was Beauty and the Beastand like another 30% was Yvette
from Clue.
Percent of it was Beauty andthe Beast and like another 30
percent was Yvette from Clue.
I've realized recently that abig part of it was because I
read Agatha Christie novels as ayoung child and I read all the
well not all, but many HerculePoirot and he would just say
(05:14):
stuff in French with noexplanation and at the time,
because I was like nine, I waslike so, apparently, if I want
to read, I need to know someFrench, because I thought all
books were like this.
Read I need to know some Frenchbecause I thought all books
were like this.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
So anyway, side note that can go on our bloopers
because it's nothing to do withDead Again.
Please continue, all right, solet me see if I can give a
synopsis of the plot, andactually I don't want to share a
lot of details, so I'm going totry.
I'm going to try.
I say this every time, but I'mgoing to try and keep it pretty
tight.
So the movie opens with thesepanning over headlines from 1949
(05:53):
.
I think the first, or one ofthe very first things we see is
the word in all caps murder.
So through these headlines fromnewspapers, we learn about
Roman Strauss, who allegedlymurdered his wife Margaret.
He's a composer.
He allegedly murdered his wifeMargaret with scissors and he
(06:15):
dies for it, like gets a deathpenalty for it.
All of the articles are writtenby the same journalist who is
called Gray Baker.
He's the one the smoker.
Yes, I played by Andy Garcia.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Iremember that.
So that was in 1949.
So now we learn the story of intoday, which is in the early 90s
(06:38):
, a woman, a Jane Doe, shows upat a convent school for boys run
by the catholic church, in thehome of roman strauss like
that's actually made clearpretty quickly.
So like the old estate that wasowned by the man who allegedly
killed his wife, who was acomposer, is now a school for
boys run by the catholic church.
(06:58):
And this woman, an amnesiac whois not speaking, shows up like,
clawing her way into the estatethat once was Roman Strauss's.
One of the nuns like wants to.
She's staying there.
One of the nuns like wants to.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Like, keep her like a pet, love her and hug her and
call her George yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Please, father, can we keep her?
No, like take care of her,because you know she's obviously
been through some really badstuff.
She has these night terrorswhere she wakes up screaming
even though she actually isn'tspeaking at all, and so the nuns
are like really worried abouther.
They want to hold on to her atthe school and the father, the
priest who runs it is likeabsolutely not, like this is not
our problem, but he calls MikeChurch, played by Brana, who is
(07:44):
like a private investigator whoactually grew up at the school
and owes him a favor orsomething isn't his name church,
because he was a foundling yes,so they, he, the priest calls
him to get his help to try andfigure out who this woman is.
So he takes her to have herpicture taken and his buddy who
works at the paper who's newman,wayne knight yeah, him, so
(08:09):
they're gonna put her in thepaper.
He tells a story about havingamnesia.
Briefly at like didn't rememberwho he was, and then his
daughter like showed up at hisbedside and he like all of it
came rushing back.
So he's trying to give her hopethat it's going to come back.
And Mike takes her to like thecounty psychiatric hospital and
it is bad, like real, it'spandemonium and violent and
(08:33):
scary.
So he takes her back to hisapartment and he clearly kind of
has the hots for her.
We see him kind of likechastising himself for not being
cool.
So that's happening in themodern times.
Enter Derek Jacoby as Mr Madsen,who runs an antique shop and
(08:54):
dabbles in hypnosis.
He saw the paper articlebecause they decided to run her
picture and say like do you knowthis woman?
Like get in touch with mychurch.
So Derek Jacoby shows up and helike hypnotizes her, like just
very, very quickly, and shespeaks, like she talks, and
something happens and Mike'slike I don't believe it.
(09:14):
And Derek Jacoby, whose name isMr Madsen, is like she wasn't
talking at all and now she is.
Why don't you come by the store?
So he's kind of a charlatan.
Well, he's not a charlatanbecause he generally does
hypnotize, but he uses it forsort of unethical purposes, like
we witness him.
He's an antique dealer and wewitness him like he's got a
woman under hypnosis who was achild in the White House with
(09:38):
Teddy Roosevelt and he's askingher about specific pieces of
furniture, like where he mightbe able to track them down.
But he is genuinely ahypnotherapist or whatever.
So he regresses the EmmaThompson character, who we don't
know her name yet, though Mikeis calling her Grace.
It goes to black and white andwe are seeing the same two
(09:58):
actors playing Roman Strauss andMargaret Strauss.
And it's really smart when Ilook back at it now, because in
that first session with MrMadsen in his shop, she's
getting very agitated.
And so he says stay distantfrom it, just be an observer,
(10:19):
don't let yourself get into it.
And so she says it started theday that Roman met Margaret, and
so it's about reincarnation.
We're led to think that she isthe reincarnation of Margaret,
and so the storytelling visuallyis very interesting because
we've got the black and white ofwhat happened in the 40s and
we've got the color of what'shappening now.
(10:39):
So we watch these two storieskind of play out.
As the grace is trying to figureout who she is, people are
after like one person, like aman comes and pretends to be her
fiance, but it turns out likemike realizes he has some detail
wrong and they're like tryingto find where she is.
(11:01):
Like they end up at herapartment.
She's an artist and all of herart has all these scissors in it
.
And at one point she and Mikehave this romance and they fool
around one night.
And it matches exactly the waythat we saw Roman and Margaret
fool around the first time.
They were out in the rain andMargaret said I, I'm, you know,
(11:24):
I'm soaking, I'll ruin yourcouch.
And he says I'll get another.
And like the same thing happensthen, to the point that grace
says this is just what happenedwith, with them, you know.
So it leads to like a suspicionbetween mike and grace, so much
so that and this scene I dowant to name like I want to tell
the story a little bit moredetail, like she's a little
(11:46):
afraid of him Because that's the.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
I even remember that in the trailer, him saying like
I'm not Roman, like trying tolike I'm Mike, I'm not Roman.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Yeah, so she's a little afraid of him and I can't
remember exactly what order.
At one point Madsen regresseshim.
And he is there too, I thinkthat happens, he, who Mike,
regresses back and is in the 40s, in the same house and whatever
.
And that's where we learn thegender swap that you remember
(12:15):
Mike is the reincarnation ofMargaret.
But that's a big reveal at theend.
That's after Grace is afraid ofMike and she says I'm afraid of
you.
And he's a little annoyed thatshe's afraid and sort of hands
her this here, take the scissors, because like scissors were the
murder weapon, take thesescissors, take these scissors.
And he like goes, like drags herthrough his apartment and hands
(12:36):
her all the scissors.
And then he hands her his gunand says you're scared of me
here, train it.
And she's like really upset,crying, like this is he's being
abusive with this.
And finally he sort of comes toand like realizes how much he's
upset her and he's sort of likeoh my God, I'm sorry, I'm so
(12:57):
sorry, I would never hurt youMargaret.
And he calls her Margaret.
And then she's like, and shepoints the gun at him which I
remember that very clearly, evenfrom 91, that I would never
hurt you Margaret and then bothof them kind of freaking out
when he uses the name of thedead woman about her.
(13:19):
So meanwhile Mike has met inthe very beginning, this
psychiatrist or psychologist,robin Williams I thought Robin
Williams was in this.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
I thought I remembered that.
Yeah, I had forgotten.
Oh, and this is where he sayssomething like it's karma you
buy now, pay forever.
Something like that.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Yes, yes, he does.
So the Robin Williams character, whose name is name is cozy
something or other, was atherapist who lost his license
for sleeping with patients andit's just this like kind of
gross character, unpleasant,yeah, very unpleasant, but like
really smart.
And so mike comes back to him acouple of times also like knows
(14:00):
about hypnosis and stuff.
Mike finds him because a manhas left him money in his will,
has left the robin williamscharacter money in his well like
eleven thousand dollars orsomething which in 90 I didn't
look up what that is in 91dollars but probably at least
three times.
So yeah, like over 30 so um andand uh, apparently the deceased
(14:24):
had been impotent and RobinWilliams had treated him and so
like there's a great line whereMike's like he must have had a
hell of a hard on when he wrotehis will.
Sometimes like these, likepeople just keep coming back.
(14:46):
It's fate, you know, you keepmeeting the same people over and
over and over again.
That's part of why grace isafraid of mike is that she's
afraid that they're like it'sgonna happen again they're
repeating the same story exactlyso we learned that mike was, is
a reincarnation, and we learnedhe actually is the
reincarnation of margaret.
And so then we see grace backat her apartment.
Her name is not actually Grace,that's what Mike was calling
(15:08):
her, but I'm just going to callher that, that with all of this
artwork that she's made withscissors in it, and Mr Madsen is
there and is like you cannottrust Mike.
It's going to feel really good,but that's how fate works and
this cannot but end badly.
And actually Hansard, this tinyantique gun from his shop to
(15:32):
protect herself.
And then we see the scene thatyou remember with the smoking.
Mike actually finds Gray Baker,who was the reporter who was
reporting on the death ofMargaret, but we learned through
the flashbacks also had a bitof a romance with her, like a
flirtation, yes, but like anongoing flirtation between the
(15:55):
two of them.
We are not given the impressionthat they ever actually flirted
, had a physical affair, butthere was a romance between them
.
So Mike sees him and throughoutwe've been hearing Robin
Williams say to Mike Church, andwe've heard a couple of times
you're either a smoker or you'renot, so pick which one you are
and get busy doing it.
(16:17):
Graybaker is a smoker Becausehe's got a trach, doesn't he?
He's got a trach.
He uses this device that he hasto hold up to the tracheotomy
in order to speak, and he begsfor a cigarette.
The nurse who let Mike into theroom said no matter what he
says, don't give him, don't lethim smoke.
And he actually smokes.
He lights the cigarette in hismouth but then holds it to the
(16:39):
hole in his neck in order tothat image has stuck with me.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Not that I ever thought I'd be a smoker, but it
was just like nope.
And that's Mike's reaction too.
He's like I am not a smoker.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Yeah, that was the point.
That was the point.
So in the flashbacks we sawthat Baker was there the day
that Roman was executed andasked him if he actually killed
his wife and he leaned in andwhispered something in Ray
Baker's ear.
But it turns out he didn'twhisper, he kissed him on the
cheek.
Baker no longer believes thatRoman was responsible.
He thought that he was at thetime, but he no longer believes.
And Mike's like well, who wouldknow?
(17:19):
Who did it, who could have doneit?
And Baker says if anybody knows, it'll be the housekeeper.
We've seen from the beginning.
There was a housekeeper and herson, frankie.
So Inga and Frankie, who werewith Roman, helped him out of
Germany.
The implication, I guess, isthat he was Jewish because he
got out of Germany and his wifeat the time died when they were
going over the mountains.
(17:40):
And at one point Margaret'slike why would a woman with a
bad heart, like, want to make atrip over the mountains?
And he was like we had to getout of Germany, but they never
actually say it explicitly,which was kind of weird to me
watching it now that theyavoided it so completely.
Anyway, so we can come back tothat.
Maybe we saw some like frictionaround Inga and Frankie, like
(18:02):
in the past.
I don't remember exactly whosays it, but maybe it is Mr
Baker, but apparently Inga andher son opened an antique shop
called the Laughing Duke, whichis the name of Mr Madsen's shop.
His name is Franklin Madsen.
Now he's played by Derek Jacobywith this British accent, but we
(18:24):
see Mike confront Inga, who's avery old woman now, and she
tells the whole story.
Frankie killed Margaret withthe scissors and he had a
stutter from the beginning.
His speech impediment got worseso she took him to England
where they gave him treatments,including with hypnosis, and he
(18:45):
became obsessed with it.
So the sort of exposition isthat he speaks with a British
accent now because the speechtherapy was in England and
that's how he got into hypnosis.
So Mike knows now and Ingahands him the anklet.
There's this whole thing withthe anklet between the two of
them.
She hands him the anklet whichhad gone missing and he thanks
her and leaves.
(19:05):
There's this very creepy scenewhere Inga turns the TV on.
She stands up and has toactually press a button, which
now seems crazy.
You can turn it on with abutton and then within 30
seconds a hand reaches over andturns it off.
And it's Frankie and she says Icouldn't live with it anymore.
And he's like I understand, Iunderstand.
(19:26):
And then he puts her to bed andthen he smothers her with a
pillow.
So in the final scene, back atthe apartment, grace is freaking
the fuck out when Mike shows upbecause she's sure he's going
to kill her and that this isfate and he's come to kill her.
And I mean because mr madison,who we now know was frankie, had
been saying as much, right, andso she's freaking out and but
(19:51):
he manages to get in theapartment, he's trying to
explain and he says this is foryou, and he reaches into, like
his breast pocket.
And this is for you is a phrasethat has come up again and
again, again.
That's what frankie said whenhe killed margaret.
We also see Roman sort of sayit in like a vision that didn't
actually happen.
So she freaks and shoots him inthe shoulder and he is
(20:14):
unconscious.
But then she like looks to seewhat he was getting out of his
pocket, sees the anklet, andshe's like, oh God, what have I
done?
What have I done?
And then Frankie shows up and weknow he's just murdered his
mother and she's like, oh god,what have I done?
What have I done?
And then frankie shows up andwe know he's just murdered his
mother and she's like I shot him.
I shot him and he was likethank you, you saved me the time
.
And then he's gonna I don'tremember exactly how he
incapacitates her, but he'sgonna kill them both.
(20:35):
But then mike wakes up, there'sa big tussle and he ends up
frank Frankie ends up impalinghimself on this giant statue of
multiple scissors that Grace hascreated.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And they live happily everafter, not Frankie, grace and
Mike.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Grace and Mike.
Well, it ends with the scene ofthem kissing, doesn't it?
Yeah, I remember that beinglike I've never seen anything
like this before.
This is the end of the film,but you know I was 12, so yeah,
being like I've never seenanything like this before.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
This is the end of the film, but you know I was 12,
so, yeah, it ends with a yeah,it ends with sort of a kiss.
That is, I don't think it'smeant to be that moment.
I think it's meant to be sortof like Like in the future, like
a yeah, synecdoche, like a partfor the whole of their lives
together.
They've broken the curse orwhatever.
So yeah, and there's likesmaller details that help kind
of like create through linesthat I did not share.
(21:28):
But that's what happens.
So it passes Bechdel, becauseInga and Margaret talk about
stuff besides men and boys.
So we have per Alison Bechdel.
Are there more than two namedfemale characters?
Yes, do they talk to each other?
Yes, do they talk aboutsomething other than a man or a
boy?
Yes, so it passes Bechdel.
(21:50):
So that's cool.
Margaret is kind of a badass.
She's a pianist and has asuccessful career and Emma
Thompson's portrayal of Margaret, I feel like, is nuanced and
whole.
She's in love with Roman, butthere's a lot more to her and
she pushes back on him when hebehaves badly and their
(22:11):
relationship, as we see it,actually feels really fucking
healthy for 1949.
I mean, not perfect.
They're having money troubleand so things are not great.
And he gets jealous of Mr BakerRay Baker, and she, like
withholds information from himabout Baker Mm-hmm, and he knows
(22:32):
it.
So I'm not suggesting it's likeperfect.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
It's not something to emulate necessarily, right.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
But it also doesn't feel in any way like abusive or
Demeaning or bullying, yeah,yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
So that feels really good insome ways when I think about the
romance.
Like what I was imbibing aboutthe romance, mm-hmm, and we're
led to believe that.
So she, margaret's on the phonewith Gray Baker, cutting things
(23:01):
off with him, and Roman sort ofcomes in on her, like on the
phone with him and hanging up,and we're led to believe that
that's what led to the jealousrage that ended in her death.
But then when we see whatactually happened, like they
both apologize and like hug andit's like it brings them closer.
So those sorts of things likefeel good in in rewatch the 90s
(23:27):
romance.
Maybe a little less so becauselike initially I don't know I'm
I'm talking in draft here, soI'm open to like questions and
pushback, but initially it'sentirely caregiving from mike to
grace.
She's amnesiac, she's terrifiedand she doesn't know why and
(23:50):
she doesn't know her name, shecan't speak, like she's, she is
mute.
And so initially, like hebrings her home to his apartment
to take care of her at onepoint, like she's washing her
hair in the sink and he's likeoh, you missed a spot in the
back and he like helps her witha bit at the back of her neck
and it's clear he's like turnedon by it.
He doesn't do anything untowardbut like it's clear he's
(24:14):
affected by this and like itfeels like all about sort of her
looks and her vulnerability.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Don't they say something when they take her
picture for the, the newspaper?
Like we'll definitely getpeople writing in about this.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Yes, because of how beautiful she is.
And they do.
Like we hear Mike fielding acall, she has an Irish clatter
ring.
And so they say, like that'sone of the ways they're using to
try and identify her.
And like we hear him talking tosomebody who's like no, I'm not
, you tell identifier.
And like we hear him talking tosomebody who's like no, I'm not
(24:47):
, you tell me about the ring.
Uh-huh, a coiled snake, yep,okay, and a tattoo right, like
like lots of people, like seethe picture on our try.
So yes, for sure.
And then, as the romancedevelops, like it seems a little
bit more kind of reciprocal,but still like there's no there
there for me.
And in fact there's that moment, like I can't remember the
(25:12):
order, but I'm pretty surethey've already had sex in that
moment when I would never hurtyou, margaret, what led him to
say that and call her by thewrong name though?
That moment when, like, shovingscissors at her and like hands
her his gun is horrible, likeit's it's really bad and he's
(25:33):
not physically abusing her, butit's it's abusive, yeah yeah
especially given where she isand and where she's been and
he's he's upset like that 's'slike him being upset about
picking the bear.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Yes, that's a man versus bear level of upset.
Because he's upset, not becauseshe is freaked out and he's mad
at her for not trusting him.
Even though she has no memory,she's reliant on him and she has
no reason to trust him well,and all this weird shit is
happening with.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
The only memories she has are from 1949, where she
thinks she was killed by theperson he now is.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Yeah, yeah, so, yeah, so that that's a like, that is
a very much a like.
You know, take this as a, takethis as a, take my gun, that's,
that's a like.
The kinds of meltdowns therewere many men who had, like I, I
it's one of those like it mightbe apocryphal, but I I read
about like a man taking hissister out into the woods and
(26:36):
like leaving her there and, likeyou know, see if you like the
bear now, and it's just like youknow, this is why we choose the
bear.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Yeah, this right here .
I think that's exactly it,because she says immediately
prior to that, I'm pretty sureshe says I'm afraid of you, mike
, which is a vulnerable thing tosay.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Yes, and brave, very brave, and that shows trust also
, because if she didn't trusthim she would pretend everything
was fine and figure out a wayto get out Right.
And so I do, real quick, wantto just explain what the man
versus bear thing is, just incase our audience doesn't know
it.
It's been about six or eightmonths ago.
It somehow came up one of thoseinterviews on the streets where
(27:17):
someone was going around askingwomen would you rather be alone
in the woods with a bear orwith a random man?
You don't know?
Would you rather be alone inthe woods with a bear or with a
random man?
You don't know?
And almost universally, womenchose the bear.
And men, upon finding this out,a lot of them had a complete
and utter meltdown.
How dare you say that About me,about me.
(27:38):
And women were saying thingslike well, the bear's not going
to act different depending onwhether or not there's other
bears there.
Yeah, the bear's not going totry to lull me into a sense of
safety before attacking.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
The bear's not going to blame me for what I was
wearing.
Yeah, and if I get mauled by abear.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
No one's going to say what were you wearing, right?
So, anyway, you were saying,like recognizing the level of
trust that someone shows bytelling them that you're afraid
or that they're hurting you.
That shows that they trust youenough to share that with you.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Movie like with a deep kind of like wistfulness
about the relationship, aboutboth sets, like both
relationships, the one betweenroman and margaret, but also,
but also the one between mikeand grace, and I'm not sure that
(28:37):
that was warranted thatwistfulness.
You know that like oh of like15-year-old me thinking of some
future romance, and there's adegree to which I think I didn't
see it because I was 15.
But there's also a degree towhich I sort of was like oh, but
he's really her right, he'sMargaret reincarnated, and so
(29:00):
somehow, like the gender swapmade that abusive moment okay.
I'm putting quotes around thatin my head which no, just no,
just no.
Sorry, baby Tracy, that was notokay, I don't care what his
previous life was Right, and sothat so that I'm staying with it
(29:22):
because I really wanted to justsay that out loud like there's
a level of sort of likeromanticization of that like
moment of friction and then it'sresolution in the end of the
film that made me think thatthat is like okay and it's not.
(29:43):
I mean, like everybody'sallowed to have a mistake, but
like I'm left with theimpression that, like Mike
Church would do that again.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Yeah, there's no sense that, like he says I'm
sorry, you know I'd never hurtyou, but that's what every
abuser says as soon as they'redone slapping you around.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Like.
He doesn't say I'm sorry, Ioverreacted.
He doesn't say I'm sorry, Itook it personally that you're
scared.
He says I'm sorry, you know I'dnever hurt you, and so I don't
know that you'd never hurt her,you just did, even though you
didn't physically, like she wasin anguish.
(30:24):
When you're shoving thesescissors into her hand and then
the gun.
So yeah, so anyway, I like, I, Iwanted to name that because in,
in terms of like what ourproject is, that's the kind of
moment that I want to surfaceand shine a light on, so that I
can maybe work to unravel thatin my own, the furniture of my
own head, sure.
So in terms of romance, I feellike that's that's work, to
unravel that in my own, thefurniture of my own head, sure.
(30:45):
So in terms of romance, I feellike that's that's the big thing
that I want to like,investigate.
Now, in terms of storytelling,in some ways, like Grana did an
amazing job, like I was, likeeven I knew what happened and
when I was watching it twonights ago, I still was on the
edge of my seat.
You know, like I like, and soin some ways, like good on you,
(31:09):
kenneth Branagh, like you did it, and when I shine a light, even
a little, I'm like, oh, wait aminute.
Oh, like, we see, like I said,the this is for you is like a
line that comes up repeatedly,but and we see that from Grace's
dream that Roman says it to theguard.
(31:31):
But, and Grace was Roman, butRoman didn't know.
That's what Frankie said.
Roman wasn't there whileFrankie was killing Margaret.
In fact, roman was likefinishing.
He had had had writer's blockand was working on this opera
and the first and only time theyheard it was he was finishing
it while she was being killed,and Gray Baker knew that Inga
(31:56):
would know what actuallyhappened.
There were only four people inthe house, one of them's dead.
Why is it so hard to figure outwhich of the three?
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
And like are we meant to then believe that Roman was
protecting Frankie?
Why?
I mean, we saw that heprotected inga because she and
frankie like helped him get outof germany, and frankie's a kid,
so maybe, but like for me now,looking back, and I wish I'd
(32:31):
seen a little bit more ofsomething I do want to just in
defense of kenn Branagh isthat's what you get with
mysteries For sure.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Yes, because you've got the economy of characters.
You've got like there's areason why the close rate on
like investigations into murderis so much smaller than what you
would come to believe based onpolice procedurals and mystery
novels, and all of that and it'sbecause the author controls how
many characters are involved.
(33:05):
Those sorts of things, likeeven the queen, agatha Christie,
will have things that, if youspend time thinking about it,
are kind of a leap or kind of alike seriously, wouldn't that be
obvious?
That only by going on the like,suspending your disbelief and
you don't even have to withAgatha Christie because she was
so good, but just like in themoment it's like yes, yes, yes,
(33:28):
and then only if you spend timethinking about it afterwards you
go like that doesn't make sensetotally that's, and that's what
this is.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
While you are watching the movie, you are
totally believing it and, likethe reveal, when you realize
that mr madsen is frankie islike I mean, it's, it's, it hits
, it really really lands.
It really lands.
So for sure, completely.
And you know, I'm allowed tosay like hey well, and then
(33:57):
there is.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
There is like, the best mysteries which I know is
what Branagh wanted to make arethe ones where you don't go like
couldn't they have figured out?
One of the other three peoplein the house committed the
murder?
Like, the very best mysteriesthat have ever been written are
the ones where there are nomoments of like whoa.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
And there's very few of those.
So I honestly I'm sort ofsaying like I just wish I'd had
a little bit more motivation forRoman to take the fall Because
effectively.
Like he had to know.
It was either Inga or Frankie.
There are only four people inthe house, and one of them's
dead.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
And he knows he didn't do it.
Yeah, so he had to know it wasone of the two of them.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
So I guess we're meant to kind of assume, because
we do hear him defending them,yeah, so there's that.
I think there's also a degreeto which I'm holding him to a
slightly higher standard too,because there's a degree to
which I feel, like in my pointabout, or in my sort of question
about discernment between smartand pretentious Brauna, like
when I look at it now and I readsomeone sort of say this I'll
(35:04):
see if I can find it and put inthe show notes Like I didn't
quite follow.
It may have even beencontemporaneous, because there's
not a whole lot written, likepeople aren't really talking
about it that much anymore, butcontemporaneously there were
folks who loved it and hated it,and the folks who hated it were
sort of like he's trying topull one over on us, like he's
(35:26):
trying to make us think it'shigh art when it's really just
entertaining, or he is somehowlike making fun of us for
wanting to be entertained, usbeing americans.
Specifically, you know that wehave rana, thompson and jacoby
who are the three leadseffectively all british actors
(35:50):
and rana and thompson playingamerican characters in the 90s
version and thompson playing anamerican woman in margaret.
Rana playing this, like withthis german accent for roman
strauss.
One person points out that, evenlike, when we first meet Mike
on screen, he's parked in thisold convertible and somebody
yells like hey man, you're onthe wrong side of the road.
(36:12):
Like, was that?
Like an inside joke about thefact that he's british?
Okay, that's what this onecommentator was saying.
Like and like, like.
I do like this.
This like big hollywood story.
Like this hollywood.
Intrigue is the center of ofthis story.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
Like why was that commentator thinking that?
What evidence did they givethat he's making fun of
americans wanting to beentertained?
Speaker 1 (36:36):
they were suggesting that this was a film that just
wouldn't go over with brits.
Huh, I don't know if I buy it.
I don't know if I buy it, butthat's what they were suggesting
but I don't know like that.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
That also doesn't necessarily tell me that he's
making he's making fun ofamericans that that could be a
young british filmmaker wholoved american films totally I
mean because it definitely feelslike a send-up of like the 40s.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Like he's doing the hard-boiled private detective
genre yes, yes, and like okay,it's a very American genre, but
that doesn't mean that otherpeople can't take it, run with
it and do something fun with it.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Yeah, totally.
So.
I don't know, I'm not.
Not, this isn't like a fullybaked idea, but like there's
something.
I think maybe with theinfluence of this commentator
who I'm not sure I followed, butbut their words are cooking and
the degree to which there'slike all of this, like either or
thinking in this film, likeeven the you're a smoker or
(37:37):
you're not.
Yeah, I'm sorry, but I rejectthat.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Yeah, that's not how it works.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
That's not how addiction works.
So there's all of this sort ofeither or thinking, even like
it's fate or it's not, it'spoppycock, or it's not, like
you're Roman or you're Margaret.
There's a lot of either orthinking.
That is sort of theundercurrent of this film, of
(38:05):
the conflict.
In this film, even you know,like even Margaret, has to
choose between Gray Baker andher husband.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Well that so you were talking about how, like Brana
is brilliant, like he really is,he's also pretentious.
Some of that pretension comesout, I think, in wanting to do
the thinking for us, in that,like the either or thinking so,
like he's feeding to us, likethese are the two options you
have available to you, insteadof allowing the audience to come
(38:38):
to their own conclusions aboutstuff and that's part of why I
both love and hate his Poirotfilms is he is doing some things
brilliantly and then somethings he's deciding for us who
Poirot is, contrary to howAgatha Christie wrote him,
contrary to how the character is, because he's decided this is
(39:01):
the right way, and I thinkthat's part of what
pretentiousness is, is like Iknow better and I'm going to go
with it.
In some ways, I might betalking out of my hat.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
No, I don't think you are.
I don't think you are.
I'm processing what you'resaying because I do think that
there's something, even the sortof like gender swap,
reincarnation, fate or no fate,like they broke the cycle, like
I wonder if it could have beenlike what a different movie.
It would have been like what adifferent viewing experience if
(39:32):
some of that had been left alittle less decided yeah yeah, a
little more ambiguous yeah,yeah, yeah, yeah, like, yeah.
I wonder, like I wonder what aviewer experience was if there
was a little bit more left forus to kind of discern on our own
or imagine on our own.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
Yeah, honestly, like again, I don't want to like
overtake with talking aboutPoirot, but Murder on the Iron
Express was fantastic and Ireally, really liked it in a lot
of ways, except for themustache, because what the fuck?
It is not what a mustache issupposed to look like.
Also, backstory that Poirot hadhad a woman who he loved and
lost like he was asexual.
(40:11):
But the other aspect of it isPoirot is like well, I can't let
you get away with this becauseI am, and there's a sense that
he might be neurodivergent orsomething like that.
At the end and that's not howChristie wrote and it felt like
because Branagh wanted a bow totie it up with.
When there is often ambiguityin Agatha Christie, now you
(40:34):
always know who did it.
She always makes sure justiceprevails for the most part in
some way, but justice for her isoften extrajudicial justice and
people committing suicide toavoid being that's what happens
in the movie the Orient Express.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
No, oh, no, sorry, I'm thinking of the Nile, yeah,
yeah yeah, death on the Nile.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
I haven't seen Orient Express.
Yeah, and that's somethingwhere ambiguity is not a bad
thing for a story.
Mm-hmm, and your interpretationis not necessarily the right
interpretation, ken.
Speaker 1 (41:08):
Well, especially in a story about reincarnation, yeah
, or about the possibility ofreincarnation, about the
possibility of fate, right,because it's not just about sort
of motives and like justice,it's also about like the nature
of the universe and humanexistence.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
Well, and Mike Church is like so Grace thinks that
she was Margaret and Mike wasRoman.
And Mike is like all this ispoppycock.
Okay, it's not poppycock, butI'm not Roman.
Okay, it's not Poppycock, butI'm not Roman, I'm not Roman.
You know, like it's still thisvery like, you know, when he
(41:44):
discovers that he was Margaret,that's like whoa, this is the
thing that blows my mind.
You know, like it's kind ofglossing over the wonder of it
all.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
It's like it's accepting something really
ridiculous, because you'refighting against the smaller
ridiculousness within it, right,yeah, and the clarity of the
memories of the past lives also,I feel like to your point kind
of erases some of the wonder andthe like, just like weirdness,
of the fact that we're talkingabout people who've been dead
(42:21):
for 40 years.
So anyway, those were just thethings that I wanted to talk
about.
I mean it's it's a beautifulmovie.
These people are beautiful,emma thompson in particular oh
my gosh, she was absolutelygorgeous.
I mean, she's still gorgeous,but she's, she is, and she was
at the height of her sort ofLuminosity, yeah, yeah, and it's
(42:43):
really showed off well.
And the romance between Romanand Margaret is believable and
beautiful and magnetic, likeeven the way there's a scene
when they're first the thingwith the I think it's, I don't
even know there's a scene wherehe's like sort of kissing her
(43:05):
hand, her knuckles, and he'ssort of moving toward her while
still just like kissing her hand.
It is so hot and it's like notsexual but, it is like just the
chemistry of it is just reallypalpable and and the connection
between the two of them justreally like comes off the screen
(43:29):
.
I really believe it.
And all of that in the blackand white sort of Hollywood
glamour of the 40s which,interestingly, like, we make
reference to world war iirepeatedly.
Repeatedly because gray bakersays he misses the war because
news is boring now and strausshad to escape germany, and yet
(43:50):
we don't acknowledge any kind ofjewish identity, which is still
feels like really weird to me.
But I maybe it was brana justnot wanting to touch that, I
don't know, but he did touch it.
It's like he touched it butdidn't name it it's either do it
or don't do it kind of you'reeither going to mention the war
or you're not going to mentionthe war.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
You're a smoker, you're not a smoker.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
Do or do not there is no try, yeah, so that's a
little bit weird, but also likeI don't know so.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
So I also wonder if that was like because it's the
era of colorblind, blah, blah,blah, that kind of stuff If he
thought he was being moresensitive as a Gentile British
blonde man like you know what.
I'm just not going to mentionit, I'll let people draw their
own conclusions.
I could have, he could havethought he was being sensitive
(44:39):
that way.
So, maybe, totally, maybe.
Let people draw their ownconclusions.
I could have, he could havethought he was being sensitive
that way.
So Maybe, totally Maybe.
So there are two things that Iremember very vividly.
One is when she first comesback to his apartment, he lends
her some clothes and the jeansshe's wearing are not his jeans.
It's the other thing.
I remember it was a coupleyears later.
We were watching it on TV, thewhole family.
I remember it was a coupleyears later.
(45:01):
We were watching it on TV, thewhole family.
And there's a scene in the 1949where Emma Thompson, as Margaret
, is wearing this clingy silkdress and you can see a little
bit of her belly.
And I remember saying somethingabout it and everyone being
like what are you talking about?
She looks great.
And I just wanted to bring thatup because the level of body
expectations that I had as a12-year-old were really toxic
(45:24):
that I felt like not only did Ithink it, but I felt the need to
say it out loud in front of ourwhole family that like wow,
she's got a belly there, orsomething like that.
And she does because she's ahuman being, right, right.
I remember like holding both ofthose things at the same time,
like that you know she's wearingthese jeans, she looks
fantastic and they're definitelynot men's jeans.
(45:44):
And also, ugh, belly, and justthe amount of pressure that we
put on women's bodies.
That I definitely internalizedis so overwhelming and that I,
like I very vividly rememberthat moment of watching that
movie and then thinking likewhen everyone was like no to me.
(46:05):
I remember thinking like Igotta rethink some things.
Speaker 1 (46:08):
Like I remember being like, okay, this is definitely
me, this is not the family beingwrong, interesting yeah, okay,
all right, let me see if I canreflect back some of the things
that we're talking, that wetalked about.
So I spent a lot of timetalking about the ways in which
I romanticized the romance.
I did that on purpose,especially the one between Mike
(46:29):
and Grace, but in them Margaretwas less fully vulnerable, like
she was able to push back inmore powerful ways than in the
moments that I sort of laid outin our conversation between Mike
and Grace.
(46:50):
And I think that there are waysin which, because it all works
out and because we learned thatMike is the reincarnation of
Margaret, that I sort of likeforgave or excused kind of bad
behavior on his part, and notonly in the way he behaved and
(47:10):
sort of shoving the scissors ather because she said she was
scared of him.
But also when he does apologize, he doesn't say I'm sorry, I
overreacted, I'm sorry, I tookit personally.
He says I'm sorry, you know, Iwould never hurt you, which is
not very reassuring from someonewho's just been kind of
emotionally abusive.
We also talked about sort ofthis was less cohesive thought,
(47:34):
but we talked a bit about theway in which there's sort of an
either-or thinking, about theway in which there's sort of an
either-or thinking, like aseries of either-ors that
undergird this film that end upI don't know if we said it quite
this clearly, but I'm going togo ahead and make this assertion
that the nature of theeither-or that Branagh leans on
(47:55):
over and over and over againends up having him do some
thinking for us.
Like he removes some options forus, which then end up sort of
diminishing the power of thestory in some ways, because it
removes some of the wonder ofthe fact that this is a
reincarnation story Because,like, as you point out, we're so
(48:16):
busy, like thinking about thegender swap, we like stop
thinking about the like holy cow, you know, like these two
people were reincarnated, endedup running into each other again
and wait what reincarnationlike.
So the the nature of this like,over and over and over again,
(48:39):
either or you're a smoker oryou're not.
It's fate or it's random, andthe answers are not smoker, fate
, rather than like it'scomplicated, it means that
Branagh is doing some thinkingfor us, that I think you propose
that that is a form ofpretension, where his smarts, he
(49:01):
makes himself superior to hisviewer.
Speaker 2 (49:04):
And that might have been what the commentator you
were mentioning was reacting to.
Yeah, agreed agreed.
Speaker 1 (49:10):
I'm just thinking this through.
It is interesting that we havethis Robin Williams character
who definitely plays in the grayalthough he is one of the
people who names the either orbecause he's the one who gives
us you're a smoker or you're not.
That comes from robin williams.
But he also lives in this grayas this, like former therapist
(49:31):
who slept with his patients, butit's like so gross.
Anyway, I named that in theperson of margaret strauss.
We have this like really wholeand badass woman, like
(49:51):
successful pianist.
We kind of get that she is afull partner in her marriage
with roman, not just like armcandy and that I still really
enjoyed.
I still really enjoyed and eventhere like we see a lot of
friction in their marriage.
But like the moment that weinitially are invited to believe
(50:15):
was the cause of her murder,when we're left to think it was
him that did it, is actually amoment that brings them closer
together.
So that too felt like a evenfor you know, 15 year old tracy
kind of idolized that and I'mnot sure I want to emulate that
in romantic relationship, butI'm not sure it would lead me
completely astray, in the sameway that I think that, like
(50:38):
romanticizing Mike Church wouldwe talked about the fact that
Branagh put a Jewish refugee ashis protagonist but never named
the fact that he was Jewish,which feels like weird and
cowardly kind of, although atthe time he maybe thought that
was a more sensitive thing to do, since he is not, in fact,
(51:00):
jewish.
This film does pass Bechdel,though I don't know that.
I would characterize it asfeminist and what am I
forgetting?
Speaker 2 (51:11):
Just holding up again that for the criticisms, we're
lobbying against this.
It is very well constructed andbeautiful.
Lobbying against this.
It is very well constructed andbeautiful.
Branagh did a really, reallygood job.
And to the point of thatcommentator who thought that he
was making fun of Americans forwanting to be entertained I
haven't read it but I would pushback on that because to me,
(51:33):
branagh's career as a directorhas always struck me as wanting
to take a genre he likes andmake it his own.
I feel like that's what he'sdone with the Poirot films and I
feel like he liked hard-boiledprivate detective mystery type
movies and he wanted to make ithis own and he kept it in
America because that's a veryAmerican genre, but he did bring
(51:56):
like he brought three Britishactors to play the main
characters.
I think that that is.
He's very good at what he does.
He has some blind spots that Idon't know that he's ever like
grown from or learned from, butin some ways he doesn't have to
because he's so good.
You know, like he could be evenbetter, but I don't know that
he has the ability to look atwhat he does and push through to
(52:21):
the even better because he doeslike deciding for us.
He knows he's smart, he is,he's very smart, and so he kind
of rests on that and thatcreates some really gorgeous and
very entertaining movies that,for the most part, I'm really
happy to watch, although some ofthem afterwards.
I will rant for a few minutesabout certain aspects of it.
(52:42):
Yeah, so next time I am goingto be bringing you my deep
thoughts about Silence of theLambs.
Oh shit, I am really.
I'm interested and excited towatch it, to rewatch it, because
I haven't seen it in probably25 years, and it has since I
(53:07):
have come to understand how thedifficulties and marginalization
that transgender peopleexperience like.
I did not understand that lasttime I saw the movie, so that is
going to really inform my viewof it this time.
I also I'm really interestedand kind of excited to talk to
you about my experience ofreading the book, which I think
(53:27):
I might have told you.
It's the only time I've everthrown a book across the room.
Yeah, I think.
Yeah, yeah, you did, you did.
So I don't know if I told youon the air or not, but no, I
don't think so.
So I look forward to it.
I'll get to it next week.
Speaker 1 (53:37):
I'll look forward to that.
Speaker 2 (53:39):
So that's what I'm bringing next week, so I'm
really looking forward to that.
Speaker 1 (53:43):
I'll look forward to hearing it Talk to you, then
Talk to you then.
This show is a labor of love,but that doesn't make it free to
produce.
If you enjoy it even half asmuch as we do, please consider
helping to keep us overthinking.
You can support us at ourPatreon.
(54:23):
There's a link.
Thank you, to ResonateRecordings for editing today's
episode.
Until next time, remember, popculture is still culture, and
shouldn't you know what's inyour head?
She says I'm afraid of you, Mike, which is a
vulnerable thing to say.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Yes and brave, very brave Because and that shows
trust also because if she didn'ttrust him, she would pretend
everything was fine and figureout a way to get out.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Have you ever had something you love dismissed
because it's just pop culture?
What others might deem stupidshit, you know matters.
You know it's worth talking andthinking about, and so do we.
So come overthink with us as wedelve into our deep thoughts
about stupid shit.
I'm Tracy Geidecker and you'relistening to Deep Thoughts About
(00:39):
Stupid Shit, because popculture is still culture, and
shouldn't you know what's inyour head?
On today's episode, I will besharing my deep thoughts about
the 1991 Kenneth Branagh filmDead, again with my sister,
emily Guy-Burken, and with you.
So let's dive in Em.
I know you saw this movie.
I think we saw it together.
We did.
We saw it in the theatertogether.
(01:00):
But tell me what you rememberabout Dead.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Again, I had a crush on kath brana from this film.
I'm not roman, uh-huh uh,scissors yep, there's a gender
swap reincarnation thing, andgosh.
So I I will tell you a fewyears later, because that came
out when I was 12.
So when I was, I was working myfirst job at Joan and Gary's
(01:23):
Original Bagel Bakery in OwingsMills, maryland.
Terrible place to work.
But, there was a guy who camethrough the line one day when I
was working the register andthere was something about him
where I was like this guy likeI'm 15, this guy was an adult
not my type.
There was something about himwhere I'm like I'm really
attracted to this guy.
Why and I realized a fewminutes later his mannerisms
(01:49):
reminded me of the characterthat Branagh plays in this film,
and he was also.
He was blonde as well, butanyway.
So that's what comes up when Ithink about this film, and I
know there's probably more inthere but that's it.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
So tell me, why are we talking about it today?
Both female leads becausethere's two stories was
Branagh's wife at the time thatthey were married, like I
remember loving that?
There was like a real liferomance between the two of them
that you know and that I thoughtthat was some I don't know.
It felt really significant tome at the time and so it popped
(02:38):
up on our list and I decided todo it.
Now it was like it's a littlebit of a you know, we try to mix
it up, so it's not all comediesor all whatever, and so this is
like the psychological thriller.
So that's part of why I justsaid it was time for a different
genre, but specifically KennethBranagh and Emma Thompson and
sort of the romance between them, which they're now divorced and
have been for many years.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
I wanted to sort of look back at the romance and see
if that holds up.
Speaker 1 (03:08):
She's married to willoughby from um sense and
sensibility.
Now, who's younger than her?
Is she she?
I didn't know that.
Yeah, so I loved him as heloved me.
Sorry, that's what I think I'mdoing.
I think of willoughby, okay, soI really wanted to look at the
romance and like, just wascurious.
It looms large in myimagination as smart that's,
(03:29):
like the.
It was a smart movie but alsostill very entertaining.
So I was just curious if itholds up.
So that's why it's on there, soit's not like a super deep
sentimental reason the way someof our movies are.
But I thought it could be a funlook back and mostly I do want
to talk about actually thestorytelling and some of the
(03:52):
choices that are made for thestorytelling and also I do want
to talk about the romance inboth stories between these two
characters and what I may havebeen kind of internalizing from
them and sort of the smart pieceof it too, like I think
sometimes the discernmentbetween genuinely smart and
(04:15):
elegant and like pretentious,for me in particular can
sometimes be a complicatednuance that I'm not always up to
the challenge, especially in1991 when I was 15.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Yeah, 15.
And so I have opinions aboutKenneth Branagh as Hercule
Poirot, for that very reason.
Speaker 1 (04:36):
Strong opinions.
I actually sort of think myoverall sense of Branagh is part
of actually why I bring that upin general, because I think
Brana has a hard time discerningbetween smart and pretentious.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
So I also wanted to mention because we've talked
before about why I became aFrench major and you know, 40%
of it was Beauty and the Beastand like another 30% was Yvette
from Clue.
Percent of it was Beauty andthe Beast and like another 30
percent was Yvette from Clue.
I've realized recently that abig part of it was because I
read Agatha Christie novels as ayoung child and I read all the
well not all, but many HerculePoirot and he would just say
(05:14):
stuff in French with noexplanation and at the time,
because I was like nine, I waslike so, apparently, if I want
to read, I need to know someFrench, because I thought all
books were like this.
Read I need to know some Frenchbecause I thought all books
were like this.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
So anyway, side note that can go on our bloopers
because it's nothing to do withDead Again.
Please continue, all right, solet me see if I can give a
synopsis of the plot, andactually I don't want to share a
lot of details, so I'm going totry.
I'm going to try.
I say this every time, but I'mgoing to try and keep it pretty
tight.
So the movie opens with thesepanning over headlines from 1949
(05:53):
.
I think the first, or one ofthe very first things we see is
the word in all caps murder.
So through these headlines fromnewspapers, we learn about
Roman Strauss, who allegedlymurdered his wife Margaret.
He's a composer.
He allegedly murdered his wifeMargaret with scissors and he
(06:15):
dies for it, like gets a deathpenalty for it.
All of the articles are writtenby the same journalist who is
called Gray Baker.
He's the one the smoker.
Yes, I played by Andy Garcia.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Iremember that.
So that was in 1949.
So now we learn the story of intoday, which is in the early 90s
(06:38):
, a woman, a Jane Doe, shows upat a convent school for boys run
by the catholic church, in thehome of roman strauss like
that's actually made clearpretty quickly.
So like the old estate that wasowned by the man who allegedly
killed his wife, who was acomposer, is now a school for
boys run by the catholic church.
(06:58):
And this woman, an amnesiac whois not speaking, shows up like,
clawing her way into the estatethat once was Roman Strauss's.
One of the nuns like wants to.
She's staying there.
One of the nuns like wants to.
Speaker 2 (07:13):
Like, keep her like a pet, love her and hug her and
call her George yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:19):
Please, father, can we keep her?
No, like take care of her,because you know she's obviously
been through some really badstuff.
She has these night terrorswhere she wakes up screaming
even though she actually isn'tspeaking at all, and so the nuns
are like really worried abouther.
They want to hold on to her atthe school and the father, the
priest who runs it is likeabsolutely not, like this is not
our problem, but he calls MikeChurch, played by Brana, who is
(07:44):
like a private investigator whoactually grew up at the school
and owes him a favor orsomething isn't his name church,
because he was a foundling yes,so they, he, the priest calls
him to get his help to try andfigure out who this woman is.
So he takes her to have herpicture taken and his buddy who
works at the paper who's newman,wayne knight yeah, him, so
(08:09):
they're gonna put her in thepaper.
He tells a story about havingamnesia.
Briefly at like didn't rememberwho he was, and then his
daughter like showed up at hisbedside and he like all of it
came rushing back.
So he's trying to give her hopethat it's going to come back.
And Mike takes her to like thecounty psychiatric hospital and
it is bad, like real, it'spandemonium and violent and
(08:33):
scary.
So he takes her back to hisapartment and he clearly kind of
has the hots for her.
We see him kind of likechastising himself for not being
cool.
So that's happening in themodern times.
Enter Derek Jacoby as Mr Madsen,who runs an antique shop and
(08:54):
dabbles in hypnosis.
He saw the paper articlebecause they decided to run her
picture and say like do you knowthis woman?
Like get in touch with mychurch.
So Derek Jacoby shows up and helike hypnotizes her, like just
very, very quickly, and shespeaks, like she talks, and
something happens and Mike'slike I don't believe it.
(09:14):
And Derek Jacoby, whose name isMr Madsen, is like she wasn't
talking at all and now she is.
Why don't you come by the store?
So he's kind of a charlatan.
Well, he's not a charlatanbecause he generally does
hypnotize, but he uses it forsort of unethical purposes, like
we witness him.
He's an antique dealer and wewitness him like he's got a
woman under hypnosis who was achild in the White House with
(09:38):
Teddy Roosevelt and he's askingher about specific pieces of
furniture, like where he mightbe able to track them down.
But he is genuinely ahypnotherapist or whatever.
So he regresses the EmmaThompson character, who we don't
know her name yet, though Mikeis calling her Grace.
It goes to black and white andwe are seeing the same two
(09:58):
actors playing Roman Strauss andMargaret Strauss.
And it's really smart when Ilook back at it now, because in
that first session with MrMadsen in his shop, she's
getting very agitated.
And so he says stay distantfrom it, just be an observer,
(10:19):
don't let yourself get into it.
And so she says it started theday that Roman met Margaret, and
so it's about reincarnation.
We're led to think that she isthe reincarnation of Margaret,
and so the storytelling visuallyis very interesting because
we've got the black and white ofwhat happened in the 40s and
we've got the color of what'shappening now.
(10:39):
So we watch these two storieskind of play out.
As the grace is trying to figureout who she is, people are
after like one person, like aman comes and pretends to be her
fiance, but it turns out likemike realizes he has some detail
wrong and they're like tryingto find where she is.
(11:01):
Like they end up at herapartment.
She's an artist and all of herart has all these scissors in it
.
And at one point she and Mikehave this romance and they fool
around one night.
And it matches exactly the waythat we saw Roman and Margaret
fool around the first time.
They were out in the rain andMargaret said I, I'm, you know,
(11:24):
I'm soaking, I'll ruin yourcouch.
And he says I'll get another.
And like the same thing happensthen, to the point that grace
says this is just what happenedwith, with them, you know.
So it leads to like a suspicionbetween mike and grace, so much
so that and this scene I dowant to name like I want to tell
the story a little bit moredetail, like she's a little
(11:46):
afraid of him Because that's the.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
I even remember that in the trailer, him saying like
I'm not Roman, like trying tolike I'm Mike, I'm not Roman.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Yeah, so she's a little afraid of him and I can't
remember exactly what order.
At one point Madsen regresseshim.
And he is there too, I thinkthat happens, he, who Mike,
regresses back and is in the 40s, in the same house and whatever
.
And that's where we learn thegender swap that you remember
(12:15):
Mike is the reincarnation ofMargaret.
But that's a big reveal at theend.
That's after Grace is afraid ofMike and she says I'm afraid of
you.
And he's a little annoyed thatshe's afraid and sort of hands
her this here, take the scissors, because like scissors were the
murder weapon, take thesescissors, take these scissors.
And he like goes, like drags herthrough his apartment and hands
(12:36):
her all the scissors.
And then he hands her his gunand says you're scared of me
here, train it.
And she's like really upset,crying, like this is he's being
abusive with this.
And finally he sort of comes toand like realizes how much he's
upset her and he's sort of likeoh my God, I'm sorry, I'm so
(12:57):
sorry, I would never hurt youMargaret.
And he calls her Margaret.
And then she's like, and shepoints the gun at him which I
remember that very clearly, evenfrom 91, that I would never
hurt you Margaret and then bothof them kind of freaking out
when he uses the name of thedead woman about her.
(13:19):
So meanwhile Mike has met inthe very beginning, this
psychiatrist or psychologist,robin Williams I thought Robin
Williams was in this.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
I thought I remembered that.
Yeah, I had forgotten.
Oh, and this is where he sayssomething like it's karma you
buy now, pay forever.
Something like that.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Yes, yes, he does.
So the Robin Williams character, whose name is name is cozy
something or other, was atherapist who lost his license
for sleeping with patients andit's just this like kind of
gross character, unpleasant,yeah, very unpleasant, but like
really smart.
And so mike comes back to him acouple of times also like knows
(14:00):
about hypnosis and stuff.
Mike finds him because a manhas left him money in his will,
has left the robin williamscharacter money in his well like
eleven thousand dollars orsomething which in 90 I didn't
look up what that is in 91dollars but probably at least
three times.
So yeah, like over 30 so um andand uh, apparently the deceased
(14:24):
had been impotent and RobinWilliams had treated him and so
like there's a great line whereMike's like he must have had a
hell of a hard on when he wrotehis will.
Sometimes like these, likepeople just keep coming back.
(14:46):
It's fate, you know, you keepmeeting the same people over and
over and over again.
That's part of why grace isafraid of mike is that she's
afraid that they're like it'sgonna happen again they're
repeating the same story exactlyso we learned that mike was, is
a reincarnation, and we learnedhe actually is the
reincarnation of margaret.
And so then we see grace backat her apartment.
Her name is not actually Grace,that's what Mike was calling
(15:08):
her, but I'm just going to callher that, that with all of this
artwork that she's made withscissors in it, and Mr Madsen is
there and is like you cannottrust Mike.
It's going to feel really good,but that's how fate works and
this cannot but end badly.
And actually Hansard, this tinyantique gun from his shop to
(15:32):
protect herself.
And then we see the scene thatyou remember with the smoking.
Mike actually finds Gray Baker,who was the reporter who was
reporting on the death ofMargaret, but we learned through
the flashbacks also had a bitof a romance with her, like a
flirtation, yes, but like anongoing flirtation between the
(15:55):
two of them.
We are not given the impressionthat they ever actually flirted
, had a physical affair, butthere was a romance between them
.
So Mike sees him and throughoutwe've been hearing Robin
Williams say to Mike Church, andwe've heard a couple of times
you're either a smoker or you'renot, so pick which one you are
and get busy doing it.
(16:17):
Graybaker is a smoker Becausehe's got a trach, doesn't he?
He's got a trach.
He uses this device that he hasto hold up to the tracheotomy
in order to speak, and he begsfor a cigarette.
The nurse who let Mike into theroom said no matter what he
says, don't give him, don't lethim smoke.
And he actually smokes.
He lights the cigarette in hismouth but then holds it to the
(16:39):
hole in his neck in order tothat image has stuck with me.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
Not that I ever thought I'd be a smoker, but it
was just like nope.
And that's Mike's reaction too.
He's like I am not a smoker.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Yeah, that was the point.
That was the point.
So in the flashbacks we sawthat Baker was there the day
that Roman was executed andasked him if he actually killed
his wife and he leaned in andwhispered something in Ray
Baker's ear.
But it turns out he didn'twhisper, he kissed him on the
cheek.
Baker no longer believes thatRoman was responsible.
He thought that he was at thetime, but he no longer believes.
And Mike's like well, who wouldknow?
(17:19):
Who did it, who could have doneit?
And Baker says if anybody knows, it'll be the housekeeper.
We've seen from the beginning.
There was a housekeeper and herson, frankie.
So Inga and Frankie, who werewith Roman, helped him out of
Germany.
The implication, I guess, isthat he was Jewish because he
got out of Germany and his wifeat the time died when they were
going over the mountains.
(17:40):
And at one point Margaret'slike why would a woman with a
bad heart, like, want to make atrip over the mountains?
And he was like we had to getout of Germany, but they never
actually say it explicitly,which was kind of weird to me
watching it now that theyavoided it so completely.
Anyway, so we can come back tothat.
Maybe we saw some like frictionaround Inga and Frankie, like
(18:02):
in the past.
I don't remember exactly whosays it, but maybe it is Mr
Baker, but apparently Inga andher son opened an antique shop
called the Laughing Duke, whichis the name of Mr Madsen's shop.
His name is Franklin Madsen.
Now he's played by Derek Jacobywith this British accent, but we
(18:24):
see Mike confront Inga, who's avery old woman now, and she
tells the whole story.
Frankie killed Margaret withthe scissors and he had a
stutter from the beginning.
His speech impediment got worseso she took him to England
where they gave him treatments,including with hypnosis, and he
(18:45):
became obsessed with it.
So the sort of exposition isthat he speaks with a British
accent now because the speechtherapy was in England and
that's how he got into hypnosis.
So Mike knows now and Ingahands him the anklet.
There's this whole thing withthe anklet between the two of
them.
She hands him the anklet whichhad gone missing and he thanks
her and leaves.
(19:05):
There's this very creepy scenewhere Inga turns the TV on.
She stands up and has toactually press a button, which
now seems crazy.
You can turn it on with abutton and then within 30
seconds a hand reaches over andturns it off.
And it's Frankie and she says Icouldn't live with it anymore.
And he's like I understand, Iunderstand.
(19:26):
And then he puts her to bed andthen he smothers her with a
pillow.
So in the final scene, back atthe apartment, grace is freaking
the fuck out when Mike shows upbecause she's sure he's going
to kill her and that this isfate and he's come to kill her.
And I mean because mr madison,who we now know was frankie, had
been saying as much, right, andso she's freaking out and but
(19:51):
he manages to get in theapartment, he's trying to
explain and he says this is foryou, and he reaches into, like
his breast pocket.
And this is for you is a phrasethat has come up again and
again, again.
That's what frankie said whenhe killed margaret.
We also see Roman sort of sayit in like a vision that didn't
actually happen.
So she freaks and shoots him inthe shoulder and he is
(20:14):
unconscious.
But then she like looks to seewhat he was getting out of his
pocket, sees the anklet, andshe's like, oh God, what have I
done?
What have I done?
And then Frankie shows up and weknow he's just murdered his
mother and she's like, oh god,what have I done?
What have I done?
And then frankie shows up andwe know he's just murdered his
mother and she's like I shot him.
I shot him and he was likethank you, you saved me the time
.
And then he's gonna I don'tremember exactly how he
incapacitates her, but he'sgonna kill them both.
(20:35):
But then mike wakes up, there'sa big tussle and he ends up
frank Frankie ends up impalinghimself on this giant statue of
multiple scissors that Grace hascreated.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And they live happily everafter, not Frankie, grace and
Mike.
Speaker 2 (20:54):
Grace and Mike.
Well, it ends with the scene ofthem kissing, doesn't it?
Yeah, I remember that beinglike I've never seen anything
like this before.
This is the end of the film,but you know I was 12, so yeah,
being like I've never seenanything like this before.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
This is the end of the film, but you know I was 12,
so, yeah, it ends with a yeah,it ends with sort of a kiss.
That is, I don't think it'smeant to be that moment.
I think it's meant to be sortof like Like in the future, like
a yeah, synecdoche, like a partfor the whole of their lives
together.
They've broken the curse orwhatever.
So yeah, and there's likesmaller details that help kind
of like create through linesthat I did not share.
(21:28):
But that's what happens.
So it passes Bechdel, becauseInga and Margaret talk about
stuff besides men and boys.
So we have per Alison Bechdel.
Are there more than two namedfemale characters?
Yes, do they talk to each other?
Yes, do they talk aboutsomething other than a man or a
boy?
Yes, so it passes Bechdel.
(21:50):
So that's cool.
Margaret is kind of a badass.
She's a pianist and has asuccessful career and Emma
Thompson's portrayal of Margaret, I feel like, is nuanced and
whole.
She's in love with Roman, butthere's a lot more to her and
she pushes back on him when hebehaves badly and their
(22:11):
relationship, as we see it,actually feels really fucking
healthy for 1949.
I mean, not perfect.
They're having money troubleand so things are not great.
And he gets jealous of Mr BakerRay Baker, and she, like
withholds information from himabout Baker Mm-hmm, and he knows
(22:32):
it.
So I'm not suggesting it's likeperfect.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
It's not something to emulate necessarily, right.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
But it also doesn't feel in any way like abusive or
Demeaning or bullying, yeah,yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
So that feels really good insome ways when I think about the
romance.
Like what I was imbibing aboutthe romance, mm-hmm, and we're
led to believe that.
So she, margaret's on the phonewith Gray Baker, cutting things
(23:01):
off with him, and Roman sort ofcomes in on her, like on the
phone with him and hanging up,and we're led to believe that
that's what led to the jealousrage that ended in her death.
But then when we see whatactually happened, like they
both apologize and like hug andit's like it brings them closer.
So those sorts of things likefeel good in in rewatch the 90s
(23:27):
romance.
Maybe a little less so becauselike initially I don't know I'm
I'm talking in draft here, soI'm open to like questions and
pushback, but initially it'sentirely caregiving from mike to
grace.
She's amnesiac, she's terrifiedand she doesn't know why and
(23:50):
she doesn't know her name, shecan't speak, like she's, she is
mute.
And so initially, like hebrings her home to his apartment
to take care of her at onepoint, like she's washing her
hair in the sink and he's likeoh, you missed a spot in the
back and he like helps her witha bit at the back of her neck
and it's clear he's like turnedon by it.
He doesn't do anything untowardbut like it's clear he's
(24:14):
affected by this and like itfeels like all about sort of her
looks and her vulnerability.
Speaker 2 (24:21):
Don't they say something when they take her
picture for the, the newspaper?
Like we'll definitely getpeople writing in about this.
Speaker 1 (24:27):
Yes, because of how beautiful she is.
And they do.
Like we hear Mike fielding acall, she has an Irish clatter
ring.
And so they say, like that'sone of the ways they're using to
try and identify her.
And like we hear him talking tosomebody who's like no, I'm not
, you tell identifier.
And like we hear him talking tosomebody who's like no, I'm not
(24:47):
, you tell me about the ring.
Uh-huh, a coiled snake, yep,okay, and a tattoo right, like
like lots of people, like seethe picture on our try.
So yes, for sure.
And then, as the romancedevelops, like it seems a little
bit more kind of reciprocal,but still like there's no there
there for me.
And in fact there's that moment, like I can't remember the
(25:12):
order, but I'm pretty surethey've already had sex in that
moment when I would never hurtyou, margaret, what led him to
say that and call her by thewrong name though?
That moment when, like, shovingscissors at her and like hands
her his gun is horrible, likeit's it's really bad and he's
(25:33):
not physically abusing her, butit's it's abusive, yeah yeah
especially given where she isand and where she's been and
he's he's upset like that 's'slike him being upset about
picking the bear.
Speaker 2 (25:48):
Yes, that's a man versus bear level of upset.
Because he's upset, not becauseshe is freaked out and he's mad
at her for not trusting him.
Even though she has no memory,she's reliant on him and she has
no reason to trust him well,and all this weird shit is
happening with.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
The only memories she has are from 1949, where she
thinks she was killed by theperson he now is.
Speaker 2 (26:15):
Yeah, yeah, so, yeah, so that that's a like, that is
a very much a like.
You know, take this as a, takethis as a, take my gun, that's,
that's a like.
The kinds of meltdowns therewere many men who had, like I, I
it's one of those like it mightbe apocryphal, but I I read
about like a man taking hissister out into the woods and
(26:36):
like leaving her there and, likeyou know, see if you like the
bear now, and it's just like youknow, this is why we choose the
bear.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Yeah, this right here .
I think that's exactly it,because she says immediately
prior to that, I'm pretty sureshe says I'm afraid of you, mike
, which is a vulnerable thing tosay.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Yes, and brave, very brave, and that shows trust also
, because if she didn't trusthim she would pretend everything
was fine and figure out a wayto get out Right.
And so I do, real quick, wantto just explain what the man
versus bear thing is, just incase our audience doesn't know
it.
It's been about six or eightmonths ago.
It somehow came up one of thoseinterviews on the streets where
(27:17):
someone was going around askingwomen would you rather be alone
in the woods with a bear orwith a random man?
You don't know?
Would you rather be alone inthe woods with a bear or with a
random man?
You don't know?
And almost universally, womenchose the bear.
And men, upon finding this out,a lot of them had a complete
and utter meltdown.
How dare you say that About me,about me.
(27:38):
And women were saying thingslike well, the bear's not going
to act different depending onwhether or not there's other
bears there.
Yeah, the bear's not going totry to lull me into a sense of
safety before attacking.
Speaker 1 (27:52):
The bear's not going to blame me for what I was
wearing.
Yeah, and if I get mauled by abear.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
No one's going to say what were you wearing, right?
So, anyway, you were saying,like recognizing the level of
trust that someone shows bytelling them that you're afraid
or that they're hurting you.
That shows that they trust youenough to share that with you.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
Movie like with a deep kind of like wistfulness
about the relationship, aboutboth sets, like both
relationships, the one betweenroman and margaret, but also,
but also the one between mikeand grace, and I'm not sure that
(28:37):
that was warranted thatwistfulness.
You know that like oh of like15-year-old me thinking of some
future romance, and there's adegree to which I think I didn't
see it because I was 15.
But there's also a degree towhich I sort of was like oh, but
he's really her right, he'sMargaret reincarnated, and so
(29:00):
somehow, like the gender swapmade that abusive moment okay.
I'm putting quotes around thatin my head which no, just no,
just no.
Sorry, baby Tracy, that was notokay, I don't care what his
previous life was Right, and sothat so that I'm staying with it
(29:22):
because I really wanted to justsay that out loud like there's
a level of sort of likeromanticization of that like
moment of friction and then it'sresolution in the end of the
film that made me think thatthat is like okay and it's not.
(29:43):
I mean, like everybody'sallowed to have a mistake, but
like I'm left with theimpression that, like Mike
Church would do that again.
Speaker 2 (29:52):
Yeah, there's no sense that, like he says I'm
sorry, you know I'd never hurtyou, but that's what every
abuser says as soon as they'redone slapping you around.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Like.
He doesn't say I'm sorry, Ioverreacted.
He doesn't say I'm sorry, Itook it personally that you're
scared.
He says I'm sorry, you know I'dnever hurt you, and so I don't
know that you'd never hurt her,you just did, even though you
didn't physically, like she wasin anguish.
(30:24):
When you're shoving thesescissors into her hand and then
the gun.
So yeah, so anyway, I like, I, Iwanted to name that because in,
in terms of like what ourproject is, that's the kind of
moment that I want to surfaceand shine a light on, so that I
can maybe work to unravel thatin my own, the furniture of my
own head, sure.
So in terms of romance, I feellike that's that's work, to
unravel that in my own, thefurniture of my own head, sure.
(30:45):
So in terms of romance, I feellike that's that's the big thing
that I want to like,investigate.
Now, in terms of storytelling,in some ways, like Grana did an
amazing job, like I was, likeeven I knew what happened and
when I was watching it twonights ago, I still was on the
edge of my seat.
You know, like I like, and soin some ways, like good on you,
(31:09):
kenneth Branagh, like you did it, and when I shine a light, even
a little, I'm like, oh, wait aminute.
Oh, like, we see, like I said,the this is for you is like a
line that comes up repeatedly,but and we see that from Grace's
dream that Roman says it to theguard.
(31:31):
But, and Grace was Roman, butRoman didn't know.
That's what Frankie said.
Roman wasn't there whileFrankie was killing Margaret.
In fact, roman was likefinishing.
He had had had writer's blockand was working on this opera
and the first and only time theyheard it was he was finishing
it while she was being killed,and Gray Baker knew that Inga
(31:56):
would know what actuallyhappened.
There were only four people inthe house, one of them's dead.
Why is it so hard to figure outwhich of the three?
Speaker 2 (32:09):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
And like are we meant to then believe that Roman was
protecting Frankie?
Why?
I mean, we saw that heprotected inga because she and
frankie like helped him get outof germany, and frankie's a kid,
so maybe, but like for me now,looking back, and I wish I'd
(32:31):
seen a little bit more ofsomething I do want to just in
defense of kenn Branagh isthat's what you get with
mysteries For sure.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
Yes, because you've got the economy of characters.
You've got like there's areason why the close rate on
like investigations into murderis so much smaller than what you
would come to believe based onpolice procedurals and mystery
novels, and all of that and it'sbecause the author controls how
many characters are involved.
(33:05):
Those sorts of things, likeeven the queen, agatha Christie,
will have things that, if youspend time thinking about it,
are kind of a leap or kind of alike seriously, wouldn't that be
obvious?
That only by going on the like,suspending your disbelief and
you don't even have to withAgatha Christie because she was
so good, but just like in themoment it's like yes, yes, yes,
(33:28):
and then only if you spend timethinking about it afterwards you
go like that doesn't make sensetotally that's, and that's what
this is.
Speaker 1 (33:34):
While you are watching the movie, you are
totally believing it and, likethe reveal, when you realize
that mr madsen is frankie islike I mean, it's, it's, it hits
, it really really lands.
It really lands.
So for sure, completely.
And you know, I'm allowed tosay like hey well, and then
(33:57):
there is.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
There is like, the best mysteries which I know is
what Branagh wanted to make arethe ones where you don't go like
couldn't they have figured out?
One of the other three peoplein the house committed the
murder?
Like, the very best mysteriesthat have ever been written are
the ones where there are nomoments of like whoa.
Speaker 1 (34:20):
And there's very few of those.
So I honestly I'm sort ofsaying like I just wish I'd had
a little bit more motivation forRoman to take the fall Because
effectively.
Like he had to know.
It was either Inga or Frankie.
There are only four people inthe house, and one of them's
dead.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
And he knows he didn't do it.
Yeah, so he had to know it wasone of the two of them.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
So I guess we're meant to kind of assume, because
we do hear him defending them,yeah, so there's that.
I think there's also a degreeto which I'm holding him to a
slightly higher standard too,because there's a degree to
which I feel, like in my pointabout, or in my sort of question
about discernment between smartand pretentious Brauna, like
when I look at it now and I readsomeone sort of say this I'll
(35:04):
see if I can find it and put inthe show notes Like I didn't
quite follow.
It may have even beencontemporaneous, because there's
not a whole lot written, likepeople aren't really talking
about it that much anymore, butcontemporaneously there were
folks who loved it and hated it,and the folks who hated it were
sort of like he's trying topull one over on us, like he's
(35:26):
trying to make us think it'shigh art when it's really just
entertaining, or he is somehowlike making fun of us for
wanting to be entertained, usbeing americans.
Specifically, you know that wehave rana, thompson and jacoby
who are the three leadseffectively all british actors
(35:50):
and rana and thompson playingamerican characters in the 90s
version and thompson playing anamerican woman in margaret.
Rana playing this, like withthis german accent for roman
strauss.
One person points out that, evenlike, when we first meet Mike
on screen, he's parked in thisold convertible and somebody
yells like hey man, you're onthe wrong side of the road.
(36:12):
Like, was that?
Like an inside joke about thefact that he's british?
Okay, that's what this onecommentator was saying.
Like and like, like.
I do like this.
This like big hollywood story.
Like this hollywood.
Intrigue is the center of ofthis story.
Speaker 2 (36:28):
Like why was that commentator thinking that?
What evidence did they givethat he's making fun of
americans wanting to beentertained?
Speaker 1 (36:36):
they were suggesting that this was a film that just
wouldn't go over with brits.
Huh, I don't know if I buy it.
I don't know if I buy it, butthat's what they were suggesting
but I don't know like that.
Speaker 2 (36:49):
That also doesn't necessarily tell me that he's
making he's making fun ofamericans that that could be a
young british filmmaker wholoved american films totally I
mean because it definitely feelslike a send-up of like the 40s.
Speaker 1 (37:01):
Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
Like he's doing the hard-boiled private detective
genre yes, yes, and like okay,it's a very American genre, but
that doesn't mean that otherpeople can't take it, run with
it and do something fun with it.
Speaker 1 (37:14):
Yeah, totally.
So.
I don't know, I'm not.
Not, this isn't like a fullybaked idea, but like there's
something.
I think maybe with theinfluence of this commentator
who I'm not sure I followed, butbut their words are cooking and
the degree to which there'slike all of this, like either or
thinking in this film, likeeven the you're a smoker or
(37:37):
you're not.
Yeah, I'm sorry, but I rejectthat.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Yeah, that's not how it works.
Speaker 1 (37:43):
That's not how addiction works.
So there's all of this sort ofeither or thinking, even like
it's fate or it's not, it'spoppycock, or it's not, like
you're Roman or you're Margaret.
There's a lot of either orthinking.
That is sort of theundercurrent of this film, of
(38:05):
the conflict.
In this film, even you know,like even Margaret, has to
choose between Gray Baker andher husband.
Speaker 2 (38:15):
Well that so you were talking about how, like Brana
is brilliant, like he really is,he's also pretentious.
Some of that pretension comesout, I think, in wanting to do
the thinking for us, in that,like the either or thinking so,
like he's feeding to us, likethese are the two options you
have available to you, insteadof allowing the audience to come
(38:38):
to their own conclusions aboutstuff and that's part of why I
both love and hate his Poirotfilms is he is doing some things
brilliantly and then somethings he's deciding for us who
Poirot is, contrary to howAgatha Christie wrote him,
contrary to how the character is, because he's decided this is
(39:01):
the right way, and I thinkthat's part of what
pretentiousness is, is like Iknow better and I'm going to go
with it.
In some ways, I might betalking out of my hat.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
No, I don't think you are.
I don't think you are.
I'm processing what you'resaying because I do think that
there's something, even the sortof like gender swap,
reincarnation, fate or no fate,like they broke the cycle, like
I wonder if it could have beenlike what a different movie.
It would have been like what adifferent viewing experience if
(39:32):
some of that had been left alittle less decided yeah yeah, a
little more ambiguous yeah,yeah, yeah, yeah, like, yeah.
I wonder, like I wonder what aviewer experience was if there
was a little bit more left forus to kind of discern on our own
or imagine on our own.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
Yeah, honestly, like again, I don't want to like
overtake with talking aboutPoirot, but Murder on the Iron
Express was fantastic and Ireally, really liked it in a lot
of ways, except for themustache, because what the fuck?
It is not what a mustache issupposed to look like.
Also, backstory that Poirot hadhad a woman who he loved and
lost like he was asexual.
(40:11):
But the other aspect of it isPoirot is like well, I can't let
you get away with this becauseI am, and there's a sense that
he might be neurodivergent orsomething like that.
At the end and that's not howChristie wrote and it felt like
because Branagh wanted a bow totie it up with.
When there is often ambiguityin Agatha Christie, now you
(40:34):
always know who did it.
She always makes sure justiceprevails for the most part in
some way, but justice for her isoften extrajudicial justice and
people committing suicide toavoid being that's what happens
in the movie the Orient Express.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
No, oh, no, sorry, I'm thinking of the Nile, yeah,
yeah yeah, death on the Nile.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
I haven't seen Orient Express.
Yeah, and that's somethingwhere ambiguity is not a bad
thing for a story.
Mm-hmm, and your interpretationis not necessarily the right
interpretation, ken.
Speaker 1 (41:08):
Well, especially in a story about reincarnation, yeah
, or about the possibility ofreincarnation, about the
possibility of fate, right,because it's not just about sort
of motives and like justice,it's also about like the nature
of the universe and humanexistence.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
Well, and Mike Church is like so Grace thinks that
she was Margaret and Mike wasRoman.
And Mike is like all this ispoppycock.
Okay, it's not poppycock, butI'm not Roman.
Okay, it's not Poppycock, butI'm not Roman, I'm not Roman.
You know, like it's still thisvery like, you know, when he
(41:44):
discovers that he was Margaret,that's like whoa, this is the
thing that blows my mind.
You know, like it's kind ofglossing over the wonder of it
all.
Speaker 1 (41:58):
It's like it's accepting something really
ridiculous, because you'refighting against the smaller
ridiculousness within it, right,yeah, and the clarity of the
memories of the past lives also,I feel like to your point kind
of erases some of the wonder andthe like, just like weirdness,
of the fact that we're talkingabout people who've been dead
(42:21):
for 40 years.
So anyway, those were just thethings that I wanted to talk
about.
I mean it's it's a beautifulmovie.
These people are beautiful,emma thompson in particular oh
my gosh, she was absolutelygorgeous.
I mean, she's still gorgeous,but she's, she is, and she was
at the height of her sort ofLuminosity, yeah, yeah, and it's
(42:43):
really showed off well.
And the romance between Romanand Margaret is believable and
beautiful and magnetic, likeeven the way there's a scene
when they're first the thingwith the I think it's, I don't
even know there's a scene wherehe's like sort of kissing her
(43:05):
hand, her knuckles, and he'ssort of moving toward her while
still just like kissing her hand.
It is so hot and it's like notsexual but, it is like just the
chemistry of it is just reallypalpable and and the connection
between the two of them justreally like comes off the screen
(43:29):
.
I really believe it.
And all of that in the blackand white sort of Hollywood
glamour of the 40s which,interestingly, like, we make
reference to world war iirepeatedly.
Repeatedly because gray bakersays he misses the war because
news is boring now and strausshad to escape germany, and yet
(43:50):
we don't acknowledge any kind ofjewish identity, which is still
feels like really weird to me.
But I maybe it was brana justnot wanting to touch that, I
don't know, but he did touch it.
It's like he touched it butdidn't name it it's either do it
or don't do it kind of you'reeither going to mention the war
or you're not going to mentionthe war.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
You're a smoker, you're not a smoker.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
Do or do not there is no try, yeah, so that's a
little bit weird, but also likeI don't know so.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
So I also wonder if that was like because it's the
era of colorblind, blah, blah,blah, that kind of stuff If he
thought he was being moresensitive as a Gentile British
blonde man like you know what.
I'm just not going to mentionit, I'll let people draw their
own conclusions.
I could have, he could havethought he was being sensitive
(44:39):
that way.
So, maybe, totally, maybe.
Let people draw their ownconclusions.
I could have, he could havethought he was being sensitive
that way.
So Maybe, totally Maybe.
So there are two things that Iremember very vividly.
One is when she first comesback to his apartment, he lends
her some clothes and the jeansshe's wearing are not his jeans.
It's the other thing.
I remember it was a coupleyears later.
We were watching it on TV, thewhole family.
I remember it was a coupleyears later.
(45:01):
We were watching it on TV, thewhole family.
And there's a scene in the 1949where Emma Thompson, as Margaret
, is wearing this clingy silkdress and you can see a little
bit of her belly.
And I remember saying somethingabout it and everyone being
like what are you talking about?
She looks great.
And I just wanted to bring thatup because the level of body
expectations that I had as a12-year-old were really toxic
(45:24):
that I felt like not only did Ithink it, but I felt the need to
say it out loud in front of ourwhole family that like wow,
she's got a belly there, orsomething like that.
And she does because she's ahuman being, right, right.
I remember like holding both ofthose things at the same time,
like that you know she's wearingthese jeans, she looks
fantastic and they're definitelynot men's jeans.
(45:44):
And also, ugh, belly, and justthe amount of pressure that we
put on women's bodies.
That I definitely internalizedis so overwhelming and that I,
like I very vividly rememberthat moment of watching that
movie and then thinking likewhen everyone was like no to me.
(46:05):
I remember thinking like Igotta rethink some things.
Speaker 1 (46:08):
Like I remember being like, okay, this is definitely
me, this is not the family beingwrong, interesting yeah, okay,
all right, let me see if I canreflect back some of the things
that we're talking, that wetalked about.
So I spent a lot of timetalking about the ways in which
I romanticized the romance.
I did that on purpose,especially the one between Mike
(46:29):
and Grace, but in them Margaretwas less fully vulnerable, like
she was able to push back inmore powerful ways than in the
moments that I sort of laid outin our conversation between Mike
and Grace.
(46:50):
And I think that there are waysin which, because it all works
out and because we learned thatMike is the reincarnation of
Margaret, that I sort of likeforgave or excused kind of bad
behavior on his part, and notonly in the way he behaved and
(47:10):
sort of shoving the scissors ather because she said she was
scared of him.
But also when he does apologize, he doesn't say I'm sorry, I
overreacted, I'm sorry, I tookit personally.
He says I'm sorry, you know, Iwould never hurt you, which is
not very reassuring from someonewho's just been kind of
emotionally abusive.
We also talked about sort ofthis was less cohesive thought,
(47:34):
but we talked a bit about theway in which there's sort of an
either-or thinking, about theway in which there's sort of an
either-or thinking, like aseries of either-ors that
undergird this film that end upI don't know if we said it quite
this clearly, but I'm going togo ahead and make this assertion
that the nature of theeither-or that Branagh leans on
(47:55):
over and over and over againends up having him do some
thinking for us.
Like he removes some options forus, which then end up sort of
diminishing the power of thestory in some ways, because it
removes some of the wonder ofthe fact that this is a
reincarnation story Because,like, as you point out, we're so
(48:16):
busy, like thinking about thegender swap, we like stop
thinking about the like holy cow, you know, like these two
people were reincarnated, endedup running into each other again
and wait what reincarnationlike.
So the the nature of this like,over and over and over again,
(48:39):
either or you're a smoker oryou're not.
It's fate or it's random, andthe answers are not smoker, fate
, rather than like it'scomplicated, it means that
Branagh is doing some thinkingfor us, that I think you propose
that that is a form ofpretension, where his smarts, he
(49:01):
makes himself superior to hisviewer.
Speaker 2 (49:04):
And that might have been what the commentator you
were mentioning was reacting to.
Yeah, agreed agreed.
Speaker 1 (49:10):
I'm just thinking this through.
It is interesting that we havethis Robin Williams character
who definitely plays in the grayalthough he is one of the
people who names the either orbecause he's the one who gives
us you're a smoker or you're not.
That comes from robin williams.
But he also lives in this grayas this, like former therapist
(49:31):
who slept with his patients, butit's like so gross.
Anyway, I named that in theperson of margaret strauss.
We have this like really wholeand badass woman, like
(49:51):
successful pianist.
We kind of get that she is afull partner in her marriage
with roman, not just like armcandy and that I still really
enjoyed.
I still really enjoyed and eventhere like we see a lot of
friction in their marriage.
But like the moment that weinitially are invited to believe
(50:15):
was the cause of her murder,when we're left to think it was
him that did it, is actually amoment that brings them closer
together.
So that too felt like a evenfor you know, 15 year old tracy
kind of idolized that and I'mnot sure I want to emulate that
in romantic relationship, butI'm not sure it would lead me
completely astray, in the sameway that I think that, like
(50:38):
romanticizing Mike Church wouldwe talked about the fact that
Branagh put a Jewish refugee ashis protagonist but never named
the fact that he was Jewish,which feels like weird and
cowardly kind of, although atthe time he maybe thought that
was a more sensitive thing to do, since he is not, in fact,
(51:00):
jewish.
This film does pass Bechdel,though I don't know that.
I would characterize it asfeminist and what am I
forgetting?
Speaker 2 (51:11):
Just holding up again that for the criticisms, we're
lobbying against this.
It is very well constructed andbeautiful.
Lobbying against this.
It is very well constructed andbeautiful.
Branagh did a really, reallygood job.
And to the point of thatcommentator who thought that he
was making fun of Americans forwanting to be entertained I
haven't read it but I would pushback on that because to me,
(51:33):
branagh's career as a directorhas always struck me as wanting
to take a genre he likes andmake it his own.
I feel like that's what he'sdone with the Poirot films and I
feel like he liked hard-boiledprivate detective mystery type
movies and he wanted to make ithis own and he kept it in
America because that's a veryAmerican genre, but he did bring
(51:56):
like he brought three Britishactors to play the main
characters.
I think that that is.
He's very good at what he does.
He has some blind spots that Idon't know that he's ever like
grown from or learned from, butin some ways he doesn't have to
because he's so good.
You know, like he could be evenbetter, but I don't know that
he has the ability to look atwhat he does and push through to
(52:21):
the even better because he doeslike deciding for us.
He knows he's smart, he is,he's very smart, and so he kind
of rests on that and thatcreates some really gorgeous and
very entertaining movies that,for the most part, I'm really
happy to watch, although some ofthem afterwards.
I will rant for a few minutesabout certain aspects of it.
(52:42):
Yeah, so next time I am goingto be bringing you my deep
thoughts about Silence of theLambs.
Oh shit, I am really.
I'm interested and excited towatch it, to rewatch it, because
I haven't seen it in probably25 years, and it has since I
(53:07):
have come to understand how thedifficulties and marginalization
that transgender peopleexperience like.
I did not understand that lasttime I saw the movie, so that is
going to really inform my viewof it this time.
I also I'm really interestedand kind of excited to talk to
you about my experience ofreading the book, which I think
(53:27):
I might have told you.
It's the only time I've everthrown a book across the room.
Yeah, I think.
Yeah, yeah, you did, you did.
So I don't know if I told youon the air or not, but no, I
don't think so.
So I look forward to it.
I'll get to it next week.
Speaker 1 (53:37):
I'll look forward to that.
Speaker 2 (53:39):
So that's what I'm bringing next week, so I'm
really looking forward to that.
Speaker 1 (53:43):
I'll look forward to hearing it Talk to you, then
Talk to you then.
This show is a labor of love,but that doesn't make it free to
produce.
If you enjoy it even half asmuch as we do, please consider
helping to keep us overthinking.
You can support us at ourPatreon.
(54:23):
There's a link.
Thank you, to ResonateRecordings for editing today's
episode.
Until next time, remember, popculture is still culture, and
shouldn't you know what's inyour head?
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