Mara Villaseca

A meditative masterpiece that got me thinking about how even the simplest and purest way of life cannot have any room in a capitalist society. One can be perfectly happy with a humble job, but what happens when the rent is raised and the goods are overpiced? Then again, next time is next time and now is now. The finale speaks of stories untold and of how each and every humble life is a scaffold of pain, glued together by little joys.

This movie is underrated. It is a well-written and directed piece on power dynamics aptly set within cut-throat money making industry. It is not just a good picture of the struggles embedded within gender roles and priveleges, but also a story of how playing with power begets winners, losers, and psychologically disturbed humans therein. It was chilling how Campbell allowed Emily's alleged abuse of Luke to be swept under the rug by human resource because she had more important things to do. It made a poignant point that power indeed comes to the competent regardless of gender but that it also corrupts irregardless. The strip club scene accutely tells how those who join the game will have to play by the rules set by the ones before them. The final scene was conflicting because it portrayed both her resilience following the verbal and inevitably sexual abuse she suffered from the decays of Luke and her rise to power as a potential egomaniac. Conversely, Luke's demise is a sad tale of a boy who was built from privilege but didn't even know it, and thereby withering upon coming to terms with a horrid truth that is too hard for him to accept.