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The terrifying power of the final scene of “Smooth Talk”

The terrifying power of the final scene of “Smooth Talk”

The inner world of adolescent girls is usually not a priority. Hollywood producers or filmmakers, with stories of young men coming of age, shared endlessly and exploring every experience under the sun. Whether it’s the sexual escapades of boys from American pie or the insidious motivations behind the characters of Children, there have been countless reflections on the moments that define male adolescence.

However, the experiences of young women are often ignored and devalued by society at large, which has little interest in the complex and nascent minds of adolescent girls coming of age in a world that does not care to hear their thoughts and their ideas. However, this narrative was changed in Joyce Chopra’s film Speak gentlyfollowing a 15-year-old girl named Connie who finds herself in a dangerously adult situation, resulting in a terrifying scene that expresses the conflict between sexual agency and objectification.

With a young Laura Dern, Speak gently is based on a short story called Where are you going, where have you been? Written by Joyce Carol Oates, it follows a teenage girl who experiences a sexual awakening over the course of a summer, beginning to attract attention from the opposite sex as she goes out with her friends and bends the rules created by her mother. However, she finds herself flirting with danger after meeting an older man called Arnold one evening, taking a sinister turn as he becomes relentless in his pursuit, leading to devastating consequences.

In her desire for an ounce of attention and express an ounce of sexual desire, Chopra creates a commentary on the melancholy impact of sex on young girls, with Connie being punished for this overt display of desire by being hunted like an animal by a much older man, preyed upon and understanding the unspoken dangers of womanhood from the most terrifying way. possible. By exploring female violence through the lens of seduction and desire, Chopra creates a twisted meditation on the imagined hopes and troubling reality of sex for many young women, something that is encapsulated in the film’s final scene, which remains one of the most intense sequences. I’ve already looked.

After showing a disturbing level of interest in Connie, Arnold ratchets up the tension by showing up at her house one day while her family is away. What follows is a frightening game of cat and mouse as he goes around the house, trying to persuade her to let him inside. Connie is caught in a complex web of emotions: both intrigued and terrified. The situation embodies the paradoxical tension of Schrödinger’s box: she is curious about sex and the adult world it represents, but she is also afraid of the consequences. She knows deep down that Arnold can’t be trusted, but part of her is flattered by his intense, if predatory, interest.

However, as the afternoon wears on and he still hasn’t left, things take an increasingly worrying turn, with Connie trapped in the house as he attempts to break in. , the thrill of male attention completely fading and becoming a completely nightmarish situation. as she realizes the extent of the threat he poses.

Dern is completely mesmerizing in this role, which is even more impressive considering she was only 20 at the time, exposing the conflicted core of desire as she struggles with the idea that sex It may not be a liberating and simple experience and there may be factors that completely eliminate one’s enjoyment of this experience. Chopra communicates the solemn understanding and quiet sorrow of the realization that growing up too fast can be fun for boys and life-threatening for girls, with a haunting final scene that relays the terror of sexual violence and what means to be a woman.

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