#inspired by how i leave my game on while doing work to farm her horns for speed meals x3

[okartichoke]

she asked him if he spent any time with the light dragon

[peachyteabuck]

saints can’t help me now

summary:  I will tell you the mystery of the woman and of the beast that carries her, whose name has not been written in the book of life from the foundation of the world. Kings give their power and authority to the beast, and those who are with him are the called and chosen and faithful. 

pairing: forest god!thor x reader

words: 4,642

trigger warnings: dub con, attempted sexual assault, vague biblical allusions that seem quite out of place in such a pagan context

notes/other: this was done for @darkficsyouneveraskedfor ‘s in the dark challenge + my prompt was “shh, it’s okay. it’ll only hurt a little.” this is also a part of @spacelabrathor‘s forest god anthology bc te amo forest god thor.

ask box / masterlist / commission info / ko-fi

There are drops of truth in every legend, however flimsy or warped. A lie doesn’t come from nowhere, lore isn’t rolled off tongues without pretext. Little children don’t lie in their sleep, in the middle of the night; they don’t lie without purpose (or the illusion of one). Behind every threat is certainty, behind every falseness a reality.

You’re smart enough to understand this, to trace the oaks back to their roots. When a villager begged for refuge from a storm and whispered to you to heed warning about some deity that had been cast away from his throne, you listened – and never traveled too deep into the deep woods. Gods are never meant to roam such an unholy place as this, which its ravenous terrain and its isolating nature and its punishing climate. Gods prefer the busy cities, the lovelier farms, perhaps even their own homes on a planet you don’t know of. An almighty being? In a space such as this? You merely laugh at the thought. Such an image is not one that inspires hope or wisdom or rebirth, rather one of a spirit thrown from its rightful place, rightful palace. Such a spirit would be vengeful, vindictive, deceitful, despiteful, unprincipled, unforgiving.

When a merchant took your money and told you of a divine man who hunted without care, you listened – and kept your cat in whenever the sun was not at her highest. Woodland creatures you rehabilitated and travelers looking for rest were sequestered within your walls until you felt it was safe. If you had to leave your home (as you often did) you refused to travel alone, preferring to starve than die at the hands of some ruthless beast. The light of day, the heat from a fire, the illumination from a torch – you trusted it all to keep you from a harm you felt was preventable.

When a fortune teller read your cards and spoke of a demiurge who threatened the peace of your home, you listened – and used every moment of every step as a way to prevent conflict. You gave what you could of whichever soul asked for it, you never disturbed the ground, you kept to yourself. Your voice remained undersized, your movements diminutive. A camp four miles away called you wee, the fortune teller called you cautious, you called it survival.

But none of that, nothing you had done or prepared or pushed to the forefront of your mind seemed to matter as you were being chased through the thickest set of trees you’d ever seen by a pack of wolves (werewolves, no less) who had spotted a way to broaden their gene pool and stalked you til dusk. Each press of your bare feet to the hardened ground forced bits of bark and bone into the callous flesh; normally you’d wail at such anguish, but the blood pumping in your ears drowns out any of your nerve’s attempts at reaching your bran. While you wince at each point of contact, the pain never seems to come.

From behind you their howls of laughter hit the trees and then your eardrums, a reminder that for them this is a game. Their idea of said game going poorly is if they do not catch you, if they cannot drag you back to their settlement as a token of their hard work.

It seems as quickly as your hunt for food had gone sour you’re plucked from the freezing ground and tossed into a barren field, slammed into the ground as your shoulders continue to rise and while your heart continues to beat at a rabbit’s pace, your eyes moving faster than the organ as they take in the scene in front of them.

Your thoughts are quick, like the blood in your veins.

Rolling hills. Crops. Yellow Crops. Deep yellow crops. Corn? Dead crops. Still cold. No snow. Yes ice. Stones, under you. Small stones. Broken stones. Bad dirt. Bad crops. Bad yield. No settlements. Sky dark. Feet hurt. Still cold. Feet really hurt.

The distinct sound of a boot digging into the ground makes you turn around, knife in your corset drawn with a shaking, aching hand.

In front of you, a man. A man in shoes meant for winter. A man dressed in dark clothes. A man with a large chest that rises slowly, slowling, slower. A man with golden skin, as deep as the flora around you. long, dirty beard. A man with long, dirty hair. A man with a set of horns that curl like a ram but peak like the blade in your palm. A man who towers over you. A man who looks less like a man as your eyes focus, but his form doesn’t become clearer.

The man is the first to speak, his lips thick and turned up into a sinister looking smile.

“What’s a little thing like you strolling alone in these woods?” His voice flows like honey with each step of gravel as he circles you. You’ve seen vultures spot prey with less purpose as his gruff laughs bring thick clouds of condensation, which fill the air between you and him. “Big, mean wolves prowl these very woods, looking for cute little things like you to prey on.”

You try to swallow what little spit remains in your dry mouth, but it seems the only thing in your throat is a thick knot of fear. Stuck in place from terror alone, each cell that makes up your body is more frozen than the ice hanging from the bare branches above you.

“I- “you’re momentarily distracted by a twig snapping in the distance. “I’m not that small!” The man (if he even is a man) laughs, loud enough to make you flinch (of course that’s all I can do, you curse yourself. Can’t run away, but can flinch at some fucking laughter.) “In these forests you are. You’re a pretty little toy for all the packs that try to stake their claim here. It’s useless, they’ll never succeed, but that sure doesn’t stop them from trying.”

Your heart beats faster than you’ve ever felt before, each painful expansion of your ribcage syncing with the blood pounding in your ears. “Wh-what happened to them?” He cocks an eyebrow. “What happened to who?”

You speak again, a little louder. “What happened to the packs, why haven’t they laid claim to this territory?”

His broad chest shakes as he chuckles at your insolence. “Because I already have.”

Your heart quickens again. “But you’re only one man,” another twig snap, another sound ignored as a different kind of fear rises in your abdomen. “How can you overpower those powerful packs, they’ve formed a coalition – the village hasn’t stopped talking about it – there’s at least a hundred of them altogether, I-”

An answer comes after a beat of heavy silence, though the tension of waiting seems better than the truth that comes all too quickly. “Because yappy puppies can’t usurp a god,” he hisses.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. Fuck.

Thor, the god you’ve been petrified of since you were a child, has been the guard of this forest and everything in it for a millennium. In like fashion to other sprawling hills and tall trees, he beckons in the seasons and calms the bears into hibernation and tells the snow when to melt. Thor is the life of the forest, attuned to the air every living breathes day in and day out. Yet he’s incomparable to his benevolent siblings, hungrier and more desperate and willing to throw away his duties to sink his jowls into anything unpardonable. This god is jaded, exhausted of the mind-numbing monotonous work of running the home of so many creatures; like knife dropped in the dirt, he threatens even the ones who step careful as marksmen watch their targets.

For a few moments you think your mouth will release a quip, a sarcastic response that would get you killed, or worse. Somehow your lips stay still, warming as each pant releases hot, white puffs into the cold night air.

There’s fear in your eyes and it permeates the air around you. The god’s nostrils flare as the pheromones hit his nose.  In a far corner of your brain you wonder what it smells like – such a strong emotion. Is it thick and sweet? Does it coat his tongue the same of when you bake fresh bread? Or is it deep and revolting – the smell of one’s soul decomposing before the corresponding body’s gone cold.

He steps closer.

You wince. “Please- “

He laughs like he’s watched a child fall to the ground in a field. “What? Are you scared?”

The word leaves his lips much slower than the others, like thick syrup in his mouth. Guess your fear is a much sweeter scent than expected.

“Should I not be?” The defiance in your voice comes like the wolf that bursts through the thinning trees behind you.

With the air knocked out of your lungs and each muscle stunned into inertness, there’s not much you can do but watch the god as you’re dragged away while two wolves trail behind you.

The grey sunlight fades as the flora becomes thicker, and for a hundred or so yards you feel as if your life is crumbling around you. But soon with the shadows from the trees comes the realization of familiarity.

Their faces – their snouts, eyes, ears, fur – they’re one you’d seen before. They’re the same ones from the small fairy circle down the way from your cabin, where you’d been trying to find something to eat besides dry mint leaves and crunchy bread.

These aren’t the wolves from the coalition near the village, these aren’t those nasty wolves who steal and plunder and take without end, these aren’t the wolves who chased you into the arms of the god who previously stood before you.

This is something worse…so much worse.

You’ve housed some of them, their yellow eyes and pink snouts have been fixtures of your spare room – you’ve stitched their paws and rubbed salve into their poison ivy rashes and brushed matts from their thick fur.

As one of them jumps on top of you – one you recognize from the scar you’d helped heal after a hawk had attempted to take out his eye – you can feel another pry your arms flat above you and two others hold your legs apart.

His long, wet tongue traces from your shoulder to your temple, his snout breathing hot air onto your feverish skin.

“I’ve been waiting to do this,” his voice is muffled, as if you’re talking to a person resting at the bottom of the sea. “Oh, I’ve been waiting to do this since I saw you and your brow furrowed with worry at that wound the wicked bird left upon me.”

He nudges under your jaw, grazing his sharp teeth across the fragile skin above your jugular as he pants.

If your hands were free, if your lips could move, you’d push him away and call him some mutt in heat, spit in his face and kick him away and run until you could not see the wretched creatures and they could not see you and the distance would make you forget everything that had and would happen and you never would have to think of their paws clawing at your body again and…

And…

“Stay the fuck away from her,” the god from before snarls from behind his teeth. The wolves, now thrown more than a hundred yards away from you, are nearly frozen in fear and realization that their plan has taken a toll for the worst. Your hands dig into the earth in an attempt to gain footing, but you can barely hold yourself up on your elbow as your vision spins. “If I find you again I will rip your heart from your thoracic cavity and leave you all to be found by the rest of your pitiful kind, do you understand?”

The wolves do not nod, but they also do not stay. Within an instant, you find yourself blessedly alone and then cursedly close to the very thing you fear the most.

“Why don’t I take you back home?” Thor whispers, watchful as you finally pick yourself up from the mud and moss. Bits of twigs and leaves and crushed bugs litter the light fabric, but you make no effort to remove it from your person – none of that matters when he locks eyes with you, blown pupils glittering with something you can’t place.

Still, with chest heaving and hands shaking, you lead him back to your homestead.

It’s not a long trek through the woods, yet Thor’s breath is audible like a deer sprinting from a pack of canids. You question nothing, though, absolutely nothing as you lead him on the winding, invisible path that leads you less than a stone’s throw away from the entrance.

You don’t say anything as you pull away, not a promise nor gratitude nor acknowledgement of his actions. The silence from you is met with Thor tugging your back to his front and wrapping your arms around you.

“I think you should thank me,” he coos. In the window of your dwelling is your cat, eyes wide in fear as she paces. She knows something is wrong, something bad is happening. But she doesn’t know how to fix it. “For protecting you.”

Some parts of you – maybe a few ribs, the bottom of your spine, your dry mouth – know what he wants. Behind your eyes you see images of you, him, your large bed. Of your small, begotten frame under his large form as he takes what he desires.

Some part of your brain, the logical side, knows you should feel fearful at this massive beast laying you down onto your worn, soft sheets. The other part, though, feels a particular heat flood your center and between your legs.

“And what is it that comprises such appreciation?” you ask, still facing your home as the god lingers behind you. Your breath – already shaky and shallow – hitches as one of his clawed fingers pushes aside your thick hair to expose the smooth skin of your neck. He places such small, light kisses there that for a moment you believe it was simply whispers of wind from the night, but once sharpened teeth graze your heartbeat you’re aware of the affections being his.

“Oh, little pet,” at his words your eyes shut on their own accord, and your bottom lip finds itself between your top and bottom teeth in the same fashion. “We both know what I want.”

You gulp, trying to find verbal footing as he begins to kiss down the back of your neck to the top of your spine. For a moment you try to speak, but it seems with each attempted sentence his hands move closer and closer to undoing the ties that keep your shift from falling off of you.

The god leads you into your home with a large hand pressed into the small of your back, and into your bedroom as if he had been there before, as if he had memorized the hallways in your home from years of spending time there; as if he was some constant fixture of your household.

The yards and yards worth of fabric from blankets and pillows alike have only ever smelled like you; pockets of your pesky familiar here and there maybe, but nothing that cannot be overpowered by a good night’s rest. It’s a comfort after a long day, something familiar and comforting.

As Thor lowers himself onto the edge of your bed you fear the stench of him will never leave you. A candle of doubt in you wonders if this is a bad thing.

With no hardship he pulls you to him, like a suitor inviting a debutante to be a partner in a waltz – though, this feels less like a dance as each second passes, your heavy breathing akin to a kidnapping than some public displays unadulterated affection.

“It’s cold out here in these woods,” he whispers to you. His hot breath sends shivers down your spine as his hands pet over your shaking form. “I must admit, it would be nice to have a toasty little thing like you to help keep me warm in such a chill.”

You shiver, hoping this behemoth does not mean what you think he means. Alas, as he pushes your long, wild hair to the side to expose the tender skin of your neck – your wildest fears bubble to the surface of your flesh. It’s his hands, so calloused they feel like bark, that manhandle you in the gentlest way possible into a position that makes your face burn hotter than a bonfire.

You’re in his lap now, spine pressed to sternum with him towering over you. For a moment you feel safe in his embrace, his larger-than-life stature making you feel like some protected child. It isn’t until he’s tearing at your clothes with a loud rrrrrrrip that you understand how little this creature truly cares for you. Still, it’s hard not to feel like some fragile, blown-glass vase from the village beyond the mountains, where boys with similarly rough, burnt hands create the most beautiful little sculptures you wish you could afford; an object of which is revered and magnificent, but an object of which holds neither agency nor uniqueness to the rest of the pretty things surrounding it.

It doesn’t occur, in that very moment, that there is no way this god would be cold in the thick of winter – not with heat radiating from him akin to your cat’s fur after being warmed by a particularly warm beam of sunlight. But the deity doesn’t have much need for the truth, not when he’s got your soaked cunt free from its increasingly uncomfortable confines and is tracing the slick up and down the lips between your trembling thighs.

“Shh, it’s okay,” he coos like a mother lying to her child while pulling a rose thorn from a tiny, smooth foot. “It’ll only hurt a little"

Thor’s hands are huge already, but now they seem omnipresent as he pets over your form. Part of you – the sensible part, the part that guided you through being banished from your family and made you carve out a piece of this expansive, soul-crushing forest – that wants to, or at least wants to try to, push him away; tell him no, stop, please, I’ll do anything.

But nothing, nothing but desperate whimpers, ones you wish were from displeasure, leave your lips.

“You know, gods can still starve,” you gulp as the short, wiry hair that patterns his jaw rubs against the skin of your neck and shoulders. “The fish from rivers and boars from the deeper parts of my forest quiet the growling in my gut, but there is another hunger I need satiated.”

You remain silent as before, fearful a protest would make your periled situation that much worse for pitiful little you.

He grips between your legs, palm flat against the hottest part of you, his own hand rough against your own silky folds. As you squeak from the contact Thor laughs deep in his broad chest, leaning down to nibble at the edge of your hot ear. “This piece of fruit will do,” you gasp as a single, thick finger enters your dripping heat. “I love a good juicy peach. You’re absolutely dripping for me, aren’t you?”

Again, he is met with silence. Never one to be deterred, he slips another finger into you. “Humans are so cute,” he purrs. “You all think you’re so strong, always fighting wars that never end and death that always comes. It seems the things you can never resist are a good fight, a good fuck,” a pregnant pause fills your bedroom as he crooks his fingers just right, soliciting the desperate whimper he’s wanted since he spotted you in the woods all those hours ago. “And me.”

He fucks his digits in and out you with slow motions, ones that drive you to the brink of madness. You’ve never been one to coo and moan so unabashedly, to let yourself fall apart so easily for someone who holds so much pure power over you. If you weren’t already vulnerable, you would be now – for as assuredly that the sun rises in the East and you wake up soaked in blood every some thirty days, this man, this god will look down on you and understand how little you can do to fend him, his advances, his charm, from your trembling body.

Thor lays down on your sea of blankets, leaving you feeling empty without his touch. A smug look paints his face as he waits for you to climb up his chest, but you do not move, simply peering at him with a heaving chest and feverish cheeks. Your mind wavers, wondering if his horns will tear into the fabric that paints your bed – but you do not have much time for such frivolous thoughts before they are interrupted once again.

“I wasn’t asking,” he tells you pointedly. “Now, come provide me with the sustenance I so desire.”

Sans your dress, moving up the length of his body is relatively easy. As he grips your hips and lowers you down to his mouth you wish you had some sort of obstruction, some reason to resist the god below you.

No such luck. As before, you are unimaginably vulnerable to Thor and his ways.

He begins with light kisses on the inside of your thighs, still tense and desperate to run away. Thor seems to notice this but does nothing to soothe you and your resistance – he understands much better than you how much he holds above your foolish head.

It doesn’t take long for you to forget your plan of escape, the path of freedom dissipating in the pleasure pooling from your scalp to the nailbeds of your toes. This god is nothing if not skilled, wide strokes of his tongue and nips at your innermost thigh and kisses on your sensitive nub soon having you rutting against his face like a dog in heat, like the wolves from before. Your hands try to find purchase in his wild hair, but with the horns in the way it’s easier to wrap your own fingers around the keratin masses than dig your fingernails into the scalp of the man below you.

You wonder if you’d have considered them less such wild beasts if you knew this was the pleasure they were chasing. Would have not run so quickly if you, too, understood the magic building in your core as you balance yourself against the wall your bed leans against. When Thor leaves you, would the animals accept your contrition and give you the same pleasure this god is? Or would you be left to chase a high no mortal could gift you?

It’s trail of thought cut short by him bullying three of his fingers into you as his lips suck at you, your screams filling every empty bit of air in your homestead. As your own yelps of pleasure fill your ears you cannot sort what is babble and what is tongues, what are incoherent syllables and what are pleas to celestial beings to never leave you.

These, too, are soon muffled, Thor making quick work of your mute state to flip you onto your stomach and propping your ass up toward him. “You know,” he says mostly to himself, knowing his words will fall on ears deaf from ringing. “The Christians who pass through my forest often speak of how the original woman was tempted with an apple and I never believed their silly tales.”

He pauses a moment to trace his fingertips up the ridges of your spine before grabbing at the base of your hair. You yelp, but he ignores you.

“But now…” his unoccupied hand comes down to SMACK at your ass, eliciting another squeak. “Now I feel able to comprehend how such a person could be tempted by the prospect of such delicious sin.”

Too far gone to be ashamed now, you push back against him in hopes of reprieve from your suffering. Without much further wait Thor enters you slow and steady, the one hand still in your hair while the other grips your hip. Thor’s bigger, much bigger than your fingers or the occasional drifter, and your walls and scream the unfamiliar girth.

The man behind you does nothing to soothe you, merely hissing into the cold night air. “God, you little witch,” he grunts behind grit teeth. “Maybe it was worthwhile saving you from those wretched wolves.”

Your mouth hangs open and your lips remain mute, your hands grasping at the sheets until they become impossible to open up again. Nothing, not a single sound of yours, bounces form the walls – merely Thor’s loud grunts and the sound of his skin slapping against yours. It isn’t until his fingers release your hair and move to your neglected clit that you begin to sing for him, screams out of tune and sharp but still smooth music to his ears.

“Yes,” he moans, feeling you contract around him. “Yes you temptress, cum on my cock, fuck let me bring you to your peak.”

How could anyone refuse that? Certainly not you, the spell-caster who was saved by this magnificent, sympathetic creature with a heart of gold and pure intentions. The tight coil in your organs releases with a shout from you and a deep groan from Thor, who continues to fuck into you as you collapse and become limp under his touch. He reaches he peak quickly, stilling for a moment before flipping you over again.

You move easily under his touch, dead weight instead of some feisty, feral little lamb with too much fight in her. On your back, he spreads your legs once again, moving to revere your swollen cunt and his thick seed dripping out of you.

It reminds you of when the artists in the villages step back when they’re finished with their works, admiring their handiwork and talent. You recognize that same affection of progress and of a finished piece in Thor’s eyes, the focused, blown pupils trained on the white trailing down to your sheets and the corners of his mouth turning up into a small, satiated smile. He’s some paragon of silent pride, one hand moving up and down your folds before pushing his seed back into you.

“Beautiful,” Thor whispers, kissing where you are most sensitive once more before moving to lay beside you. The world spins around you as he pulls you into his broad chest, his heart thumping dull in the ear pressed to his heaving ribs.

You say nothing to the contrary, succumbing to sleep like a babe after a long feeding.

orThor disappears just as he entered, confidently and without much fuss. You wake up alone, more alone than you did that morning, surrounded by the very scent of him. Somehow, as the sun comes over the horizon, it’s enough.

Over the next few weeks, everything mostly returns to normal. You go through the ebb and flow of your routine; watching over your territory, eyeing the dark of the night each time the wind made the trees move like children listening to songs around a bonfire. Sometimes the swaying calms you as you clutch a cup of mint tea in your trembling hands, but others it mirrors the churning of your stomach.

Tonight, it feels like both. And tonight, you bury your face in the last of him left with you while hoping you never have to see the god again.

[its-just-like-the-movies]

Raw (17, B), American Fable (17, C+), and Personal Shopper (17, C)

In my quest to review every 2017 release I see, I’ve decided to cramp down on some films that I’m sort of enthused by that could’ve been better versions of themselves. The Spooky Lady-Led Trio, you could call it. All of these films have something to offer to prospective viewers, and elements I’d happily endorse, as well as things I’d readily change about them. Either way, here they are!

Raw

As an advertising hook, a film with the idea of relating to cannibalism as just one of those things kids do in college while exploring themselves was a pretty great lure to get me into the theater. A French film with a breakout female director that won a Cannes prize with every review thumbnail featuring its heroine covered in blood? This smelled like the perfect mix of art house horror and gross-out horror. And it frequently was that, particularly in the mysterious opening scene and a later one explaining it, the eating of an accidentally mislaid finger, the worst seven minutes in heaven - all the sex scenes are actually sort of terrifying, - and a scene near the end that redefines the term “leg day”. The beginning hazing and party scenes are all pretty effective, as are the more mundane frights of being accused of cheating on an exam and walking in or your roommate having sex. We the audience all made an agreement with each other as that finger was being eaten that hey, if this is a lot for you, feel free to freak the fuck out. It’s easy to see the argument director Julia Ducournau is trying to make with this film, but too often she undercuts herself in the film’s most stylized gestures. Lights flare red and pink as protagonist Justine (played by newcomer Garance Miller) is prowling parties for men to sink her teeth into, and it’s simply not as effective as seeing her carnivorously oggle her gay roommate as he plays soccer, sexually taunting an opposing team member as her nose bleeds. A dream sequence sees a horse running forever strapped in a treadmill-type machine, another one sees a dissected dog rise from its metal table, still hidden under its plastic sheet. For a film with the objective of trying to portray cannibalistic impulses as just another thing kids do in college, it regularly struggles playing things as casually with Justine as does with her roommate’s promiscuity, the general partygoing/hazing rituals of her classmates, or the cannibalism her own sister partakes in.

Played with a lived-in, grubby casualness by Ella Rumpf that’s fascinating to watch even before we learn she also eats people, Alexia’s relationship with Justine becomes an even richer mystery than the women’s shared cannibalism as Alexia continuously fluctuates between taking her sister under her wing and leaving her out to dry, particularly in a vicious fight after Justine sees a video of what Alexia got drunk Justine to do, only for it to end in a moment of unity and bonding between the sisters, perhaps the most connected they’ve been the whole film. Her own nonplussed attitude as she peels back the layers of her own depravity while trying to coax her sister down the same hole is portrayed with the offhanded tone the film should’ve stayed in, instead of the flashes of stylized lighting and odd, seemingly unrelated visual imagery. A final-frame reveal that could’ve been a whole other chunk of the film, tying back to an earlier scene where Justine is shocked to learn that *her* parents would’ve been game for her vet school’s hazing, could’ve easily been a whole narrative of the film for Ducournau to explore for both sisters had she not essentially reduced it to a jump scare. I’ve seen critics try and assign social commentary to Justine’s relationship with the gay roommate portrayed by Rabah Naït Ouffela she and Alexia both contemplate going after, in different but not ways, as taking to task the ways that straight women use and abuse GBFs, but I haven’t read the take that would make me agree with that idea completely. There’s a lot in Raw I wish were better, even though it worked plenty of times just fine and Rumpf nails every one of her scenes. Given the rise of cannibalism as a topic in film, television, and pop culture in general, I hope there’ll be a take like this that goes further and achieves the rich goals it sets for itself. But if the chance to see Raw comes your way, take it. Even if it doesn’t hit all its marks, its successes are still as terrifying and inspired as the best horror movies around, with sections so tense and horrific you and all your friends will lose all feeling in their fingers at the same time. A fun, unifying experience for the whole squad.

American Fable

I’ll give American Fable credit for probably fulfilling all of its ambitions, but the success is marred by an odd directorial hawk and some too inevitably realized arcs, particularly the doomed neighbor and the escalating antagonism of the brother. Plenty had been said about the film’s stylistic and tonal debts to Terrence Malick, but I wonder how well this actually served the film. True, in a long dream sequence, director Anne Hamilton crafts a woozy, elaborately out-of-body experience that feels like an actual dream using Malick’s new-age style. Hell, actress Marci Miller, cast here as the protagonist’s mother, seems like a composite of Sissy Spacek and Jessica Chastain, while lead Peyton Kennedy is as close to Linda Menz as I’m sure Hamilton could find. However, I’d say the Malick inspirations are something of a limitation to the story, lending it a kind of fantastical or grand air that just doesn’t suit the subject matter. Why make such an event carry the kind of majesty connotations that that style implies, when something a little darker or less florid would’ve been a more apt treatment of the script. That subject matter by the way, is about a young girl who discovers that her father has agreed to imprison a land developer in an abandoned silo on behalf of a Mysterious Woman in exchange for enough money to keep their farm afloat. And that young girl, named Gitty, discovers that man around the same time her father falls into a coma, forcing this Mysterious Woman to share what she had commissioned The Father to do with His Wife and Their Son Martin, who gladly steps up to take his father’s place and falls easily to the words of encouragement this strange lady provides. She also bears a great likeness to a woman wearing armor with ram horns on the helmet and riding a black horse, who always shows up when shit gets fucked up. This woman also bears no real impact on the narrative despite being a semi-interesting figure, and it’s debatable that the actual Mystery Woman does either.

Gitty’s relationship with the Mystery Man, played with such panicked gentleness, faux benevolence, and earnest caring by Richard Schiff - what a good summer for The West Wing’s men! - is easier the most affecting part of the film. Even if it’s as easy to see coming as her relationship with her brother, Schiff and Kennedy manage to create a real bond of unclear fragility as Gitty begins grappling with what his being there means, and what she can do to help. The last shot rewards her and our faith in Schiff’s character, and if the movie around them feels somewhat under-realized, I’m still glad I got to see that relationship unfold. In fact, the film ends with more unanswered questions and loose ends than it started with, which doesn’t really do right by the parents or the ultimate payoffs, literal or otherwise, with the Mystery Woman’s request. Again, I think Martin’s arc becomes more or less predictable once he threatens the life of Gitty’s beloved pet chicken, but at no point do we see what his parents’ reaction is to where he’s left. I don’t regret seeing it, but looking back on it, there’s surprisingly little to parse over, especially in the areas it so successfully advertised as being about. A lot of that stuff - the wondrous stylization, potential supernatural elements, some kind of folkloric entity - all feel extraneous, underused, or ill-serving to the film, some parts more than others, but still. There’s bits of magic all over the place, but even more so are there missed opportunities.

Personal Shopper

So early into the year, I’m not sure this was necessarily the project I was most looking forward to, but it was definitely high up on the list. Kristen Stewart had been practically perfect in Olivier Assayas’s Clouds of Sils Maria two US released years ago, the story itself sounded so entrancing, and reviews from several critics I trusted had been rapturous. On the other hand, plenty of friends and people I talk to online (or both) weren’t that hyped on the film or Stewart, and the Best Director Cannes prize Assayas shared with Cristian Mungui for Graduation wasn’t exactly a saving grace for what many considered to be a lackluster set of awards that managed to ignore much better films almost completely. I for sure haven’t seen all or even most of the Competition films from 2016, but Aquarius and Elle already pose more ambitiously realized projects than Personal Shopper does, not to mention Loving’s lowkey achievements and the madness of The Handmaiden.

Hindsight being 20/20 and all, it seems almost inevitable that I’d be as unmoved about this film as I am now. Like Clouds, Personal Shopper seems to have fashioned a showcase vehicle for its leading lady without giving her a whole lot to play beyond material firmly within her comfort zone. Juliette Binoche got who knows how many monologues about the price women in Hollywood must pay to stay relevant, a sentiment that might’ve had a little more power or variance had Assayas cast an actress who could really relate to that character instead of an actress who’s stint with American movies was sort of a phase in the middle of all those French movies she was and has been making, building a massive amount of acclaim and goodwill in Europe along with winning numerous prizes in France and Europe in general. In a similar vein, Assayas casting Stewart as a woman forced to withhold herself emotional seems like perfect casting but really isn’t, constraining the actress to give the kind of laconic, uninteresting performance many had accused her charismatic, lowkey style of actually perpetrating in previous films (no, I don’t remember Twilight). I felt bad that my interest in her performance got higher as she got emotional, even though I never believed she’d actually die. I wish I felt more active restraint in her performance, trying to keep a grip on her hope and fear and curiosity at all times rather than seemingly not feeling anything except in the scripted moments to let that gas valve leak. Post-film, I kept wondering who would fit better in the lead role of Maureen. Lea Seydoux, perhaps? who gave such a restrained performance in Farewell, My Queen that was nevertheless tinged with palpable thoughts and emotions at all times and could’ve just let the film be in French. Ellen Page, maybe? not for any particular reason but if he’s gonna cast an American actress he might as well do another outside-the-box choice that could pay off big time. Taissa Farmiga, who’s been so great at doing the same kind of grounding that Stewart has been in horror films across tones and genres while being able to play perfectly with the ratio between ridiculous and earnest of each project. Fuck it, why not Julianne Moore?

I don’t mean this to rag on KStew herself, who I’d have happily handed an Oscar to for her work in Clouds, but this feels like miscasting disguised as no-brainer casting. Between Clouds and Certain Women, her particular style seems best as a kind of supporting seasoning, or at least not perfectly aligned with the tone of the film itself. Part of what made her so special in both projects is that she managed to carve a space in both films to accommodate her own persona while fitting her style into the film’s. Personal Shopper fails her by trying to tailor itself to what Assayas may think are her strong suits, which just ends up making Maureen unreadable in an uninteresting way. The plot itself doesn’t really help her, given how thin it ultimately is. Opening and closing with Maureen working in France until she finds out that her recently deceased twin brother had moved on and that there is an afterlife, the large middle of it is occupied with an unknown number texting Maureen, pretending to be and not be her dead brother and whose identity I guessed almost as soon as the first messages popped up on Maureen’s screen. There’s barely more here than Clouds, and it’s marginally better given the spooky subject matter - the few scenes of Maureen performing a seance or following her pen pal’s orders are appropriately tense - but it’s still alarmingly little for the film to work with.

Would a different director entirely have solved this trick. One person I follow on Twitter, Kyle Turner (who’s super great, go follow him, it’s @tylekurner) suggested Mia Hansen-Løve should’ve been given this project, and I firmly agree. Admittedly I’ve only seen Things to Come, one of 2016’s most perfect movies, but if that’s essentially the kind of film Hansen-Løve would’ve made Personal Shopper into, it’s an idea I fully support. That kind of observational style would’ve been a lovely prism to examine Maureen’s griefs and hopes for the afterlife, for her brother, and for her own life as she waits for a sign and puts off flying to her boyfriend in Wherever. It may also have been a fine match for Stewart’s brand of quiet charismatic performance, allowing it to flourish within her keenly observational style instead of subsuming it. Most, if not all of my thoughts on Personal Shopper are about how to make it a better movie, something I feel a little bad about given how well others have received it - David Ehrlich was practically rapturous, saying the film evoked his grief at the death of his father so potently, and his review was the best encouragement I had to see this - and I do hope people see this. It’s an ambitious project made by artists I’ve fans of outside this particular film with plenty more projects of theirs I’m actively searching for, and I respond to raves about Personal Shopper better than other positive reviews for projects I was equally meh on. See it for yourself. Maybe your opinions about it will make themselves known by smashing a glass or tearing wallpaper, or just manifesting physically and vomiting ecoplasm in your general direction. Either way, it’s an interesting project with a singular, spooky tone that’s trying more than plenty other films.