Speaker 1: On the Bechdecast, The questions asked if movies have women
Speaker 1: and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands
Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? The patriarchy Zeph and Beast
Speaker 1: start changing with the Bechdel Cast.
Speaker 2: Oh hello, Jamie, Hello, Hello, what's up? How are you?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: I'm doing pretty good.
Speaker 3: How are you? I'm doing all right. Yes, it's just
Speaker 3: nice to sit down and watch an Australian film. So true,
Speaker 3: Australian films are so slipped on, wouldn't you agree? I agree,
Speaker 3: absolutely slipt on that Tony collects a stuff.
Speaker 2: She really is and I always forget she's Australian because
Speaker 2: most of the roles I've seen her do she's doing
Speaker 2: an American accent. Yes, I feel like she is.
Speaker 3: She then, and we've talked about this on the show before,
Speaker 3: but I never I never tire of this line of discussion.
Speaker 3: But like she and Margot Robie, I feel like our
Speaker 3: our our strongest stealth Australians that I'm aware of, unless
Speaker 3: there's more and we we just don't know.
Speaker 2: Solely true, because there's Nicole Kidman's always kind of slipping
Speaker 2: into her.
Speaker 3: I would not, I would not she is. I would
Speaker 3: not say that. I'm like, really, Nicole Kidman's Australian, nothing
Speaker 3: but respect, but like she's constantly falling out of it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: in a way that I simply love. I find it
Speaker 3: very charming. Oh oh my gosh, no, wait, you're not
Speaker 3: a Succession head Sarah Snook. Sarah Snook, who plays the
Speaker 3: daughter Shive on Succession, is Australian and in all four
Speaker 3: seasons I have I'm sure Australian folks would catch smaller slips,
Speaker 3: but I like caught one slip and it was so
Speaker 3: funny because she just couldn't say range. I think we've
Speaker 3: talked about this of the Yeah, Raine drove she could.
Speaker 3: She couldn't say Range, Rover, She's a Range and you're like, yeah,
Speaker 3: New York girl boss. Anyways. Yeah, this movie is proof
Speaker 3: positive that Tony Kullett is indeed Australian and has been
Speaker 3: for some time, at least thirty one years. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I would say most of her life.
Speaker 3: Can't speak to before then, but this was like her big,
Speaker 3: her big Welcome to the Bechdel Cast. My name is
Speaker 3: Shamie Loftis.
Speaker 2: My name is Caitlyn Dante. This is our show where
Speaker 2: we examine movies through an intersexual feminous ones, using the
Speaker 2: Bechdel test as a jumping off point. We don't really
Speaker 2: have time for that. We got to talk about Muriel's wedding.
Speaker 3: This is our fake wedding. This is our fake wedding.
Speaker 3: This is yeah. We we sort of planned this episode
Speaker 3: last minute just because we were excited about it. It's
Speaker 3: a movie that we are I'm sure that we're making
Speaker 3: a few prospective guests for this because I think so
Speaker 3: many guests over like I would talk about Muriel's wedding like,
Speaker 3: people are frothing for this episode. Oh yeah, and we're
Speaker 3: happy to give it to you. And I am so
Speaker 3: excited to hear what people's experience with this movie was,
Speaker 3: because I just like, there's so much to talk about.
Speaker 3: What a film? I know, what a film I not?
Speaker 3: Wouldn't you say? So? This film came out in nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety four. Ever heard of it?
Speaker 2: It was a lie?
Speaker 3: It is I believe me too, And it's brave of
Speaker 3: us to say that. But this was directed by PJ. Hogan,
Speaker 3: who was like, who did so? He also did my
Speaker 3: best friend's wedding, which we covered not too long ago
Speaker 3: on this show, and by that, I mean I was
Speaker 3: living in my current apartment, so it couldn't have been
Speaker 3: too long ago.
Speaker 2: Very true. He also directed that Peter Pan movie that
Speaker 2: you have discussed with enjoying jerem me.
Speaker 3: I was like, wow, he's coming up all over the place.
Speaker 3: I also have been thinking a lot about Jason Isaacs,
Speaker 3: who I believe plays Captain Hook in that Peter Pan. Yeah,
Speaker 3: because Jason Isaacs is in the new season of White Lotus,
Speaker 3: so he's kind of having and I was like, who
Speaker 3: is that? And then it's like, oh right, Wig Luciu's
Speaker 3: Malfoy's dad. I was like, what's his name? What's his name? Wig?
Speaker 3: In my head, Jason Isaac's name.
Speaker 2: Is Wig long blond Wig.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't know him before he was Wig.
Speaker 4: P J.
Speaker 2: Hogan also directed Confessions of a Schoppaholic, which I have
Speaker 2: also not seen.
Speaker 3: I haven't either. I know that people have and listeners
Speaker 3: correct me from wrong. People have a lot of love
Speaker 3: for that movie, but it seems more nostalgic than it
Speaker 3: being good, might imagine. I can't say I read the
Speaker 3: Confessions of the Chapoholic books when I was a kid,
Speaker 3: because they had like a lot of sex in them,
Speaker 3: and I think my mom let me take them out
Speaker 3: of the library because she thought they were princess Diary's
Speaker 3: books because the covers look similar, you know, both very
Speaker 3: feminine titles. And but like I learned how to I
Speaker 3: value those. But I don't remember a thing that happened,
Speaker 3: but it's how I remember. It's how I learned about
Speaker 3: fucking and credit card debt, two things I have since experienced.
Speaker 2: Congratulations, thank you.
Speaker 3: Thank you. And I couldn't have done it without my
Speaker 3: friend Chappaholic.
Speaker 2: I learned about fucking via Judy.
Speaker 3: Bloom books, like the adult ones. Yeah, because she wrote Forever, Yes,
Speaker 3: Forever was that's a very horny book, very horny.
Speaker 2: And then there's one called like Summer Sisters or something.
Speaker 2: Remember that heavily references Abba. Relevant to today's discussion.
Speaker 3: I do have a quite I mean, how on earth
Speaker 3: did because this was an independent film, how did they
Speaker 3: afford Abba? I don't It was made for nine million dollars,
Speaker 3: Like that's how much it costs to play three seconds
Speaker 3: of dancing Queen. Now I wonder.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know, Mammy are ruined it for everyone?
Speaker 2: I was gonna write Abba songs are that's too high.
Speaker 3: Now, that's it's very possible because I think this came
Speaker 3: out before the musical, so maybe that was just what
Speaker 3: let me. Yeah, because the musical came out in nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety nine, so maybe Abba Wright's We're pretty cheap. And
Speaker 3: I mean it's clear that no one in Australia in
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety four had a good thing to say about them.
Speaker 2: Well especially Mary friends.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean you can tell where PJ. Hogan
Speaker 3: stands because everyone who hates Abba is a bitch. What
Speaker 3: an interesting movie. So yes, nineteen ninety four PJ. Hogan,
Speaker 3: written and directed by I believe, his film debut, produced
Speaker 3: by two women Brave, one of whom is Pj's his wife,
Speaker 3: Jocelyn Moorehouse and a young actor who is pretty obscure
Speaker 3: becomes a big stat from this movie. And an's Tony Kollett.
Speaker 2: That's so true, Jimmie, what is your relationship with this movie?
Speaker 3: I hadn't seen it and I have no idea why,
Speaker 3: because it's like I think, maybe it's just like a
Speaker 3: little Yeah, I guess it's like for the same reason
Speaker 3: that I mean, I'm not comparing them, but they're like
Speaker 3: for one thing, I thought this movie was a romantic comedy,
Speaker 3: like I did not, And there I would say, it
Speaker 3: is like, while it is coded as it seems like
Speaker 3: it was marketed as a romantic comedy. I mean, I
Speaker 3: look at the cover of this movie and I'm like.
Speaker 2: Oh, that's a rom com probably exactly.
Speaker 3: Like it's a I was. I was honestly like, is
Speaker 3: this just like a boring highjinks thing? Like what is this?
Speaker 3: This movie, I would say is pretty thoroughly devoid of
Speaker 3: romantic love, but not devoid of love, but devoid of
Speaker 3: romantic love, yes, but it is funny at many points.
Speaker 3: I found it very sport but like, yeah, I just
Speaker 3: hadn't seen it for whatever reason, for the same reason
Speaker 3: that yeah, I think like Pretty Woman is a movie
Speaker 3: that you'd think I would have seen by now, but
Speaker 3: it was just like a little too old where I
Speaker 3: don't think I grew up with anyone was like, you
Speaker 3: gotta watch Muriel's wedding. But that's a damn shame, because
Speaker 3: this movie I really enjoyed it. I've I don't even
Speaker 3: like it's gonna be challenging to talk about because there's
Speaker 3: so much that happens in this movie. I will say
Speaker 3: and Okay, to be clear, I don't mean this as
Speaker 3: a negative, but a lot of tonal whiplash where you're like,
Speaker 3: it's this movie, No, it's this movie. It's a noora
Speaker 3: for a few minutes, and then it's like a family
Speaker 3: drama for the last ten minutes. It's like it's so
Speaker 3: many different movies. It's also kind of like, I mean,
Speaker 3: I would be shocked if people weren't, you know, sort
Speaker 3: of in the way that fans, do, you know, rooting
Speaker 3: for Muriel and Rohnda to realize they're in love with
Speaker 3: each other. I don't know what PJ thinks of that,
Speaker 3: but that's probably what should happen anyways. Yeah, I just
Speaker 3: thought it was wild. Yeah, and also that this came
Speaker 3: out during like a pretty cool moment for Australian independent
Speaker 3: film because it came out right after the Adventures of Priscilla,
Speaker 3: Queen of the Desert, So this was like a really
Speaker 3: interesting time for Straine film. So true, what's your history
Speaker 3: with this movie? Had you seen it?
Speaker 2: I had seen the first scene at the wedding at
Speaker 2: the very beginning. Interesting, and I don't know why I
Speaker 2: didn't keep watching. I think I like had to go
Speaker 2: to a comedy show or something. But I watched it,
Speaker 2: I think when I was still living in Boston with
Speaker 2: my best friend, who I'm pretty sure is a big
Speaker 2: fan of this movie, and he's like, I'm gonna put
Speaker 2: this on, and then I watched the first scene and
Speaker 2: then I like had to go. It's not that I
Speaker 2: wasn't interested in continuing watching.
Speaker 3: It's also such a weird for it's such a weird
Speaker 3: movie from the moment it begins, like I like, what
Speaker 3: would you even leave? Being like where is this going
Speaker 3: to go? Because it's like Urials getting arrested? Right.
Speaker 2: So I knew enough based on that first scene to
Speaker 2: know that it was a movie about a woman who
Speaker 2: we're supposed to kind of think is this you know,
Speaker 2: like sad sack person, but we also like love her
Speaker 2: and we're endeared to Muriel. But it's like it doesn't
Speaker 2: start the way like that first scene. I was like,
Speaker 2: oh this this probably isn't a standard rom calm based
Speaker 2: on just like how things are being set up or
Speaker 2: I couldn't really tell. But I never found out until
Speaker 2: you know, yesterday what it was about, because I for
Speaker 2: some reason didn't keep watching it at a later date.
Speaker 2: But now I know. I've seen it twice now in
Speaker 2: the past twenty four hours, and there's so much to discuss.
Speaker 2: There's so much that happens. This is one of the
Speaker 2: longest recaps I've ever written, just because so much happens
Speaker 2: and it's hard to like gloss over things.
Speaker 3: I really liked. One of the many things I liked
Speaker 3: about this movie is that even though there are like
Speaker 3: I don't know, I mean, and maybe the recap will
Speaker 3: prove me wrong because it is just such a vibes movie,
Speaker 3: but even when characters sort of drop in and out,
Speaker 3: they usually I thought that the script in the movie
Speaker 3: was like much better than most movies about making sure
Speaker 3: characters came back, making sure that people had a moment.
Speaker 3: Someone who is referenced early on we meet later and
Speaker 3: we get to see, even if it's like maybe very
Speaker 3: sort of quick, but like you get to see sort
Speaker 3: of like the humanity of a lot of stock rom
Speaker 3: com characters, because it feels like this is a whole
Speaker 3: movie about the like quote unquote loser best friend that
Speaker 3: we see in so many romantic comedies, but this movie
Speaker 3: is about her and about how everyone around her is
Speaker 3: an asshole, like including her, Like I just yeah.
Speaker 2: She's got problems, but that's what makes the movie so like,
Speaker 2: it's so good, authentic and endearing. H Yeah, it's like
Speaker 2: if a movie focused on like the Judy Greer best
Speaker 2: friend character of so many rom coms.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then yeah, and if she had like huge
Speaker 3: issues with her family. We'll get to the fare. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I thought it was really good. I also kept writing
Speaker 3: down real teeth. I just love people.
Speaker 2: No, no, uh, what's the fucking guy's name, Jerry Bruckheimer here?
Speaker 3: No, no, Lauren Michael's teeth, none of it, none of
Speaker 3: it real real teeth. Also, Okay, the best example I
Speaker 3: can think of of a bit character that I had
Speaker 3: totally forgotten about and then she came back was that
Speaker 3: lady Diane who hates shoplifting.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, she's just.
Speaker 3: The same, The same woman gets both Muriel and her
Speaker 3: mother arrested for a shoplifting. Yeah.
Speaker 2: She's like, I guess it's sort of like those secret shoppers, Yeah,
Speaker 2: who just like goes to stores and like spies and
Speaker 2: narcs on other customers for shoplifting.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean it's like, I get it that you've
Speaker 3: got to work, but the least you can do is
Speaker 3: be really bad at that job on purpose. Come on, absolutely?
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, Well, in any case, shall we take a
Speaker 2: quick break and then get into the ages long recap
Speaker 2: that I've written.
Speaker 3: Let's do it.
Speaker 2: Okay, we'll be right back, and we're back. We'll place
Speaker 2: a content warning here for suicide as well as family
Speaker 2: abuse dynamics. Here's the recap of Muriel's wedding. I also like,
Speaker 2: I'm like, am I saying this name right? Muriel Muriel?
Speaker 2: And then later she calls herself Mariel.
Speaker 3: Like, it's Muriel Muriel. I think that that at least
Speaker 3: that's the American pronunciation of it, okay, because that was
Speaker 3: did you ever I know, I know the answer to this.
Speaker 3: Did you ever watch Courage the Cowardly Dog?
Speaker 2: Were not at all?
Speaker 3: Well, there's a character named Muriel on that show. It's
Speaker 3: spelled the same way, and she says it like that. Okay,
Speaker 3: it's kind of an old time It's just like an
Speaker 3: old fashioned name. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, my grandmother was named Miriam, so oh, okay, similar vibes.
Speaker 3: I knew. I knew a few mary El's. I definitely
Speaker 3: didn't know any Muriels. Her husband's name was Eustace. This
Speaker 3: cartoon I'm talking. Okay, so they they've just wear an
Speaker 3: elderly cartoon characters.
Speaker 2: Got it, got it all right?
Speaker 3: I guess we should start.
Speaker 2: So we are in a place called Porpoise Spit Australia.
Speaker 2: Ever heard of it? No, because it's a made up.
Speaker 3: Place, such a funny big name.
Speaker 2: We meet Muriel has Slop, played by Tony Kullette, at
Speaker 2: her friend's wedding, not her best friend's wedding, just her
Speaker 2: regular friend's wedding. She has caught the bouquet Mariel has
Speaker 2: and she's delighted because she loves weddings. She desperately wants
Speaker 2: to get married. The whole marriage and wedding thing is
Speaker 2: like very up her alley. Yeah, but all of her
Speaker 2: very mean friends such as Tanya, Cheryl, Nicole, there's another
Speaker 2: one whose name I didn't catch. They're like, eh, Muriel
Speaker 2: caught the bouquet. There's no way she'll be the next
Speaker 2: one to get married. She's never even had a boyfriend, Mariel,
Speaker 2: you should give the bouquet to someone else. They're also
Speaker 2: commenting on how she didn't even buy a new dress
Speaker 2: for this wedding, and she's like, yes, I did.
Speaker 3: And then it's like, well, yes and no, I love
Speaker 3: I love her. I just like she's impossible not to
Speaker 3: root for, even when she's being a real piece of shit.
Speaker 3: I just Tony Kalett is so good and the writing is,
Speaker 3: I thought, really good.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I just this movie weirdly made me like my best
Speaker 3: friend's wedding more just because I knew it was the same.
Speaker 3: It's not that I really want to watch it again,
Speaker 3: but I know that that our whole discussion around that
Speaker 3: movie was sort of like they were trying to go
Speaker 3: for something but it didn't quite happen, right, And I
Speaker 3: feel like they're trying to go something for something different,
Speaker 3: but they're trying to go for something here that is
Speaker 3: also weirdly wedding related, right, But the difference is it
Speaker 3: works in this movie really well. Right.
Speaker 2: It seems like PJ. Hogan has a vested interest in
Speaker 2: subverting traditional wedding oriented narratives, and what he ends up
Speaker 2: doing with My best Friend's wedding I appreciate to some extent, but.
Speaker 3: It also just feels like it's so Hollywood, and it
Speaker 3: seems like this movie is presumably completely within his control
Speaker 3: because it's fairly low budget. It's I don't know. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I wasn't able to fight a lot of information of
Speaker 3: like was he But I'm assuming because it's like a
Speaker 3: husband wife, you know, producing to it, like creatively, there
Speaker 3: was a lot more freedom to make some like weird
Speaker 3: choices because this movie makes so many weird choices.
Speaker 2: It really does. Yeah, And then there's a quick moment
Speaker 2: where Muriel goes inside and sees the groom whose name
Speaker 2: is Chuck.
Speaker 3: You're like and maybe maybe that's the name. Maybe we're
Speaker 3: not sure.
Speaker 2: And he's having sex with not the bride but one
Speaker 2: of the bride's friends, Nicole, and like Muriel sees them
Speaker 2: like secretly having sex in the laundry room. Then there's
Speaker 2: this whole thing where that woman, I guess her name
Speaker 2: is what is it Diane. She's like the secret shopper
Speaker 2: like store detective lady who accuses Maryel of stealing the
Speaker 2: dress that she's wearing.
Speaker 3: I am just like my enemy, my enemy Diane.
Speaker 2: The cops get involved, but Muriel's dad, Bill Heslop played
Speaker 2: by Bill Hunter, who was also in Priscilla, Queen of
Speaker 2: the Desert, and he's in another movie that we watched
Speaker 2: recently together. We haven't covered it on the podcast yet,
Speaker 2: but strictly ballroom.
Speaker 3: I mean he is Australia.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he is like a city council member or something.
Speaker 2: He works in government.
Speaker 3: It seems like he's a city council member who aspires
Speaker 3: to a bigger political career. Yes. Yeah, he's a climber
Speaker 3: and he's a piece of shit.
Speaker 2: He's the worst person. He kind of like butters up
Speaker 2: the cops to get Muriel out of trouble after stealing
Speaker 2: this dress. Then we cut to Muriel having dinner with
Speaker 2: her family. Her dad and her mom, Betty played by
Speaker 2: Genie Drynen, are there, along with Muriel's like three or
Speaker 2: four siblings. Her dad is carrying on about his various
Speaker 2: business dealings. He seems to be like a real estate
Speaker 2: developer or he like grants permits to people who build
Speaker 2: these like resorts and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: I was not exactly sure, yeah, because I was like,
Speaker 3: whatever he was doing, it's shady as fuck. Yeah, he
Speaker 3: was doing illegally. But like he I mean, and this
Speaker 3: is like a through line to the movie as it
Speaker 3: turns out, but like he's such a liar that I
Speaker 3: was not even sure what he was supposed to.
Speaker 2: Have been doing, right, Yeah, I don't really, I don't understand.
Speaker 3: He's like, I don't take bribes, I mean agreements, And
Speaker 3: I was like, for what, like it just was I
Speaker 3: don't know, I don't have that in me. I'm just like,
Speaker 3: it's too confusing. You're calling things other can't do it.
Speaker 2: We just know he's sleazy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and he's hearing on oh that day draft, like
Speaker 3: whenever he screams across any room day draft. Yeah. The
Speaker 3: woman he's gonna leave her for. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So there's that. There's he talks about how he
Speaker 2: like ran for state government once but lost. That'll kind
Speaker 2: of come back later. We also learn that Muriel dropped
Speaker 2: out of high school. She's currently unemployed and has been
Speaker 2: for a couple of years. Her dad calls Muriel and
Speaker 2: her siblings useless and dead weight. And then this is
Speaker 2: when a friend of Bill's comes over to the table.
Speaker 2: This is a beauty consultant named Deirdre who.
Speaker 3: Is basically running an MLM. It sounds like like a
Speaker 3: ninety era mL.
Speaker 2: It's not Avon, it's not Mary Kay, but it's something
Speaker 2: like it.
Speaker 3: It's the Australian fictional variant of this right, but.
Speaker 2: Deirdre offers Muriel a job. The next night, Muriel goes
Speaker 2: out to drinks with her friends, her mean girl friends,
Speaker 2: including the bride from the wedding, Tanya, who's crying because
Speaker 2: her husband is already having an affair, but not.
Speaker 3: With the person that Muriel knows with. It's a different affair,
Speaker 3: which just unfortunately, like pretty funny when you see, like
Speaker 3: when you see I think it's Nicole, react to like, wait,
Speaker 3: he's cheating on me to yet another person.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And her friends tell Tanya to forget about her
Speaker 2: husband and go on holiday with them to Hibiscus Island.
Speaker 3: This is the lot to Sex and the City the movie.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, you're right. Yeah, I didn't even think
Speaker 2: about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like if they had a friend that they
Speaker 3: verbally abused almost to death. Fortunately, among their crimes, that's
Speaker 3: not one of them. There's not a random fift but
Speaker 3: it really did feel like the cast of Sex and
Speaker 3: the City plus Tony Collette, and everyone's screaming at Tony
Speaker 3: Collett to shut up.
Speaker 2: Right, because what has happened is that Maryel's friends had
Speaker 2: planned a vacation without inviting Mauriel, and then they tell
Speaker 2: her that they don't want Muriel hanging around with them
Speaker 2: anymore because she doesn't fit in with the image that
Speaker 2: they've cultivated. She doesn't wear the right clothes or hairstyles.
Speaker 2: They fat shame her, and they also just simply don't
Speaker 2: like who she is as a person. Mauriel naturally starts
Speaker 2: crying and she says.
Speaker 3: I'm not nothing. It's so we're like, oh, Mariel, yeah,
Speaker 3: like this this movie is very depressing. Do yeah. However,
Speaker 3: I think it's so like bravely. I think Tony Kallett
Speaker 3: is very talented, but it is wild how they managed
Speaker 3: to balance the tone in the scene that like, your
Speaker 3: heart is breaking for her, and the scene is still
Speaker 3: a little bit funny because they're in this like loud
Speaker 3: tiki bar, and the friends are so tone deaf that
Speaker 3: when they're like, oh, yeah, I'm Muriel. We didn't invite
Speaker 3: you on vacation because we hate you and we hate
Speaker 3: everything about you. And then I think Tanya turns the
Speaker 3: subject back to herself and Muriel's still crying, and then
Speaker 3: she's like, could you stop making it about yourself? Muriel?
Speaker 3: Like It's like it still manages to be funny in
Speaker 3: this very depressed but in a way that isn't taking
Speaker 3: swings at our love of Muriel, which is I feel like,
Speaker 3: really hard to do. And yeah, I mean we'll we'll
Speaker 3: talk about the the you know that group of gals.
Speaker 3: But I just it made me because, especially as the
Speaker 3: movie goes on, it just feels like when you start
Speaker 3: to realize the sort of unending depths of self hatred
Speaker 3: that Muriel has for herself, that it's like she's saying,
Speaker 3: I'm not nothing like almost more to herself than to
Speaker 3: these women, and it's totally it's really sad. I no, oh,
Speaker 3: it breaks your heart. And then don't worry. It's gonna
Speaker 3: work out for her everyone. It's gonna also watch the movie.
Speaker 3: It's streaming on Paramount Plus. But it's gonna work out
Speaker 3: for her everybody.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but a few really the horrible things will happen first, I.
Speaker 3: Mean, isn't if that's not life best case scenario.
Speaker 2: Okay, So her friends have dumped her. The next day,
Speaker 2: Muriel's mom, Betty, gives Muriel a blank check so that
Speaker 2: she can buy makeup kids from Deirdre to resell because
Speaker 2: it is this like MLM scheme. Muriel tells her mom
Speaker 2: that she's gonna get married and be successful so that
Speaker 2: her parents can be proud of her.
Speaker 3: And there's a line that and there's also I again
Speaker 3: just like a character that I'm used to seeing in
Speaker 3: passing in rom comms, the like, for lack of a
Speaker 3: better description, depressed mother, and we end up getting I mean,
Speaker 3: it doesn't get much happier, but there is a lot
Speaker 3: of depth that we get with her mother that I
Speaker 3: wasn't expecting, and I was like pretty pleasantly surprised by
Speaker 3: just the amount that the plot is considering her. But
Speaker 3: there's a line she says in that scene that again
Speaker 3: just broke my heart because it becomes I feel like
Speaker 3: it's clear at the beginning, but it becomes clearer and
Speaker 3: clearer as the movie goes on that Muriel's mother's coping
Speaker 3: technique is denial and like shutting herself off to the
Speaker 3: parts of reality that are upsetting, even when that hurts
Speaker 3: through children. Basically, there's a line that she says that
Speaker 3: just brought my heart where she's like, your dad just
Speaker 3: wants to be proud of you, and you're just her
Speaker 3: phrasing it that way, you're just like, ah, I would
Speaker 3: steal all your money too, totally, which is what Muriel does.
Speaker 2: Yes, because we cut to Hibiscus Island, which is a
Speaker 2: very small island off the north west coast of Australia.
Speaker 2: This is where Muriel's friends are or former friends I
Speaker 2: should say, are on vacation. They look over and see Muriel,
Speaker 2: who has clearly used that blank check that her mom
Speaker 2: gave her to treat herself to a holiday, and the
Speaker 2: other women are furious that Mauriel is there. That night,
Speaker 2: she runs into someone she went to high school with,
Speaker 2: Ronda played by Rachel Griffiths. Maryel makes up a lie
Speaker 2: and tells Ronda that she's engaged to someone named Tim Simms.
Speaker 3: They I and you will be shocked how long Tim
Speaker 3: Simms is canonically real in this friendship.
Speaker 5: It seems like a month and months. She's like, what
Speaker 5: do you mean you would get a married Tim Simms?
Speaker 5: It's somehow even funnier in the accent, like.
Speaker 3: It's just I love it. It's it's her. I don't know
Speaker 3: why I'm feeling so referencing today, but her, what is it?
Speaker 3: Astronaut Mike Dexter, like just a made up boyfriend from
Speaker 3: thirty Rock. Yes, that's Muriel's Tim Simms.
Speaker 2: I'm also reminded of I forget which Brady Bunch movie,
Speaker 2: but it's like the ones that Christine Taylor is in them.
Speaker 2: They were like big staples of my youth. And Marcia
Speaker 2: at one point makes up a boyfriend named George Glass.
Speaker 2: So I love a lot like that.
Speaker 3: I mean, because it's also and I appreciate that it's
Speaker 3: made clearer in Muriel's wedding. Then I think it's been
Speaker 3: in most because I mean, god knows how many movies
Speaker 3: we've covered that have been like a relationship predicated on
Speaker 3: a lie. But I am giving this movie a pass
Speaker 3: because it's a friendship. No, But also it is, like
Speaker 3: is made so clear to us why Muriel's doing what
Speaker 3: she's doing. It doesn't excuse her from being dishonest with
Speaker 3: people who especially people like Ronda, who actually care about her,
Speaker 3: but it's very clear that this lie is coming from
Speaker 3: a place of insecurity, which is like most of the
Speaker 3: times in you know, my life where that lie has
Speaker 3: been made to me, or like when I was in
Speaker 3: high school from me is because you're insecure and like
Speaker 3: you want to seem cool and yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3: We just covered Ryleyan on the show, and there's a
Speaker 3: similar thing there where it's just like, oh, I'm only
Speaker 3: going to see this person for one night. Let me
Speaker 3: just let them believe in the best version of myself
Speaker 3: that doesn't exist yet totally, and then you always end
Speaker 3: up entering a domestic partnership with this person. But what
Speaker 3: can you do? Right? It is?
Speaker 2: It is very different from the standard like rom com.
Speaker 2: Oh it's a it's a bet, or it's some kind
Speaker 2: of goofy lie to trick someone into thinking I'm not
Speaker 2: writing an article about them or whatever it is. Right,
Speaker 2: the context here is totally different, and it's rooted in
Speaker 2: something far more real, zembling real life, because I've met
Speaker 2: so many people like Muriel who I like, of course,
Speaker 2: either don't know they're lying or I can tell they're
Speaker 2: lying about something, but I understand why they're doing it,
Speaker 2: because yeah, they're they're insecure, They're they're doing the like
Speaker 2: fake it till you make it thing, and you know.
Speaker 3: It's the classic like I have a boyfriend who lives
Speaker 3: in Canada, like yeah, and some people carry that energy
Speaker 3: far into their adulthood and Muriel is I mean she's not,
Speaker 3: I mean not far into her adulthood. Tony Kollette I
Speaker 3: think is like twenty two in this movie. Yeah, but
Speaker 3: you know she and also as as it becomes more
Speaker 3: obvious and like, I don't know if it hit for
Speaker 3: you right away and I'm just have a brain full
Speaker 3: of rocks. But it's also like Muriel has seen her
Speaker 3: parents use lying in denial as coping strategies her whole life,
Speaker 3: and so it makes a lot of sense that that
Speaker 3: would be her go to for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So this is the lie that maryel tells
Speaker 2: Ronda about her fiance Tim Sims. Sims and the two
Speaker 2: of them get to talking about Tanya and Tanya's friends
Speaker 2: and how they were so cruel to Ronda in high school,
Speaker 2: and Mariel is like, well, surprise, they're right over there.
Speaker 2: So Ronda approaches them and Tanya is like, oh, why
Speaker 2: don't you have a drink with us? And Ronda is
Speaker 2: basically like no, thanks, you killy had beach.
Speaker 3: By the way, love, Like this speed with which Ronda
Speaker 3: wins you over is like unreal, It's so great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and she's like, by the way, your friend Nicole
Speaker 2: is fucking your husband. And also I'm gonna go hang
Speaker 2: out with my new friend Maryel By like mic drop.
Speaker 3: Cut to and also, if you haven't seen the movie,
Speaker 3: important that you know that Muriel's obsessed with Abba. Cut
Speaker 3: to them doing an amazing karaoke scene in Waterloo, and
Speaker 3: then you're like, oh, this movie is weird, weird like this,
Speaker 3: it's it's great. Also, my best friend's wedding features an
Speaker 3: extended karaoke scene. Another PJ.
Speaker 2: Hogan, Wait, is it the one where they're at the
Speaker 2: like rehearsal dinner or some like wedding.
Speaker 3: Over Julia am I thinking they're wrong movie Ulis can't
Speaker 3: sing and then they follow.
Speaker 2: No, Cameron Diaz can't sing. Oh yes, yes, at karaoke.
Speaker 2: But then there's another scene where like a whole group
Speaker 2: of people are singing at some dinner. Yeah, we're talking
Speaker 2: about twoffer different scenes. But now I remember the karaoke scene.
Speaker 4: P J.
Speaker 3: Hogan loves a weird karaoke slash bar fight scene.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because what happens is like Rhnda and Muriel are
Speaker 2: like bringing down the house with their Waterloo performance.
Speaker 3: The outfits. It's just awesome. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, Tanya and her friends are there and they're having
Speaker 2: a horrible time, and then Tanya and Nicole start beating
Speaker 2: each other up. Cut to Maryel's family. They're reading a
Speaker 2: postcard from Muriel saying that she's funding this expensive vacation
Speaker 2: with all the cosmetics she's selling. Diadra hears about this
Speaker 2: and knows that Muriel's lying. Also, there's speculation that Muriel's
Speaker 2: dad and Deirdre are having an affair. I can't remember
Speaker 2: if I've made that clear yet or not.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, And it becomes increasingly obvious as time goes on,
Speaker 3: for sure, because she just always happens to be in
Speaker 3: the same restaurant. I love that that's there. It seems
Speaker 3: like truly their system is I will go to the
Speaker 3: nearest Chinese restaurant, and then you also go there, because
Speaker 3: we see that happen in multiple cities, Like that's clearly
Speaker 3: just their thing that they.
Speaker 2: Do something and he's always like, oh, what a cool
Speaker 2: and she's like hi, yeah yeah. So back to Muriel.
Speaker 2: She's still on vacation, hanging out with Ronda, who reassures
Speaker 2: Marriel that she is somebody. She's successful in Timstons wants
Speaker 2: to marry her. Shortly after this, Muriel returns home very
Speaker 2: briefly because it seems like her family is missing. Twelve
Speaker 2: thousand dollars and they rightfully suspect Muriel of stealing it.
Speaker 2: So she turns right back around and heads to Sydney,
Speaker 2: where Ronda lives. She moves in with her.
Speaker 3: It's a very sad scene, but it's also very funny
Speaker 3: that Muriel walks in the house with these like pretty
Speaker 3: gnarly tan lines too. She has like the outline of
Speaker 3: sunglasses on her face, which I thought was a funny touch.
Speaker 3: And then her poor mother is like always wanting to
Speaker 3: give her the benefit of the doubt, and it's like,
Speaker 3: you didn't do it right. You wouldn't do that. You're awesome,
Speaker 3: and Muriel's like, yeah, gotta go and running back. I mean,
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, I was laughing.
Speaker 2: It's funny.
Speaker 3: You sun block. Oh my god. People in the nineties
Speaker 3: were so stressful. Please use sunblock for the love of god.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay. So Muriel moves to Sydney. She's still lying
Speaker 2: to Ronda about having been engaged, although now she's saying
Speaker 2: that her ex fiance, Tim Sims is a cop, and
Speaker 2: so she's changing her name to Mariel with an A
Speaker 2: to hide from him.
Speaker 3: And I like that. I mean, it's definitely like naive
Speaker 3: of Ronda, But I also just like appreciate how game
Speaker 3: she is for like whatever Muriel's up to where she
Speaker 3: says and she means it. She's like, oh, you know
Speaker 3: when she meets him, she's like, oh, are you are
Speaker 3: you trying to like have one last fling before you
Speaker 3: get married to Tim Simms. I won't tell anybody. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And then and then she's like, oh, are you changing
Speaker 3: your name? Because Tim Sims is a homicidal X cop.
Speaker 3: I won't tell anybody. And it's like she is. She's
Speaker 3: a true friend.
Speaker 2: She's loyal.
Speaker 3: She's loyal even when it's like, come on, read back
Speaker 3: what you just said. But they're young.
Speaker 2: They're young, yeah, early twenties. Yeah, yeah, Okay. So Maryel
Speaker 2: now works at a video rental store and one night
Speaker 2: she goes out to a dance club with a customer
Speaker 2: named Bryce, who had like come into the video store
Speaker 2: and asked her out on a date. She brings him
Speaker 2: back home, where Ronda is having allowed threesome in the
Speaker 2: other room. Maryel and Bryce start making out. She's shrieking
Speaker 2: with laughter, and then there's all this okay high jinks.
Speaker 3: Well, okay, we have to slow this scene down because
Speaker 3: this scene I was like, I had to watch it
Speaker 3: like three times. It so much happens. Some of it
Speaker 3: is very high, some of it is very serious. The
Speaker 3: giggly stuff I was really confused about because I was
Speaker 3: sort of wondering because what happens right before they start
Speaker 3: making out and like we'll get into this where you know,
Speaker 3: it is very nineties and ascribing to like no consent discussions,
Speaker 3: nothing like that. Right like they're vibing, but he comes
Speaker 3: on pretty strong. I thought, sure, And she's laughing and
Speaker 3: it's unclear. I sort of was like, is it nervous
Speaker 3: or excited laughter? Because what happens right before they start
Speaker 3: making out is she sees her dad on tv ye
Speaker 3: say like Muriel, come home. We don't care about the money,
Speaker 3: And so I was like, is she having a panic attack?
Speaker 3: Like or is this but and it's like it's genuinely
Speaker 3: and it's you know whatever. It doesn't need to be
Speaker 3: directly clear to me, but I was like, I just
Speaker 3: felt to me, I was like reading that as like
Speaker 3: she was just like so overwhelmed by so many things
Speaker 3: happening at once, where I was like, this is an
Speaker 3: either her first or one of her first sexual experiences
Speaker 3: and she's like excited about it but also nervous, and
Speaker 3: also her dad is on TV looking for her, and
Speaker 3: also there's a three way going on five feet away,
Speaker 3: and it's just like it seems like she just like
Speaker 3: sort of her brain breaks a little bit and she's
Speaker 3: like yeah, right, and then hijinks and then cancer and
Speaker 3: you're like.
Speaker 2: All it's a spin of like two minutes. It's so
Speaker 2: much jam packed into one small moment.
Speaker 3: While Yeah, I was.
Speaker 2: Thinking about, like, the context we learned earlier in the
Speaker 2: beginning of the movie is that Maryel's never had a boyfriend.
Speaker 2: That doesn't mean she's never had any sexual experiences, but
Speaker 2: it also might mean that she hasn't.
Speaker 3: We don't know.
Speaker 2: We don't know for sure.
Speaker 3: We're not sure. It does seem like Muriel has a
Speaker 3: hyperfixation on monogamy that would suggest that maybe she hasn't
Speaker 3: had it, but we again, we just don't know.
Speaker 2: Canonically hard to say yeah. But then yeah, there's this
Speaker 2: like high jinxy kind of slapstick moment where Bryce, intending
Speaker 2: to like unzip her pants, he accidentally unzips the bean
Speaker 2: bag chair and all of the beans spill out. Then
Speaker 2: the two dudes who Ronda is fucking come out naked
Speaker 2: with their dicks out, and every time, like and why
Speaker 2: Maryel sees them, she shrieks some more. But like in
Speaker 2: a again, we're just like how.
Speaker 3: It just seems like she it's like she she's very
Speaker 3: hard to read this scene. I was like, how are
Speaker 3: you feeling? I don't know. Yeah, And also I'm like
Speaker 3: it happened so suddenly that I'm like, why did they attack?
Speaker 2: I'm guessing they heard her shrieking shrieking, and then they're like,
Speaker 2: what are you doing to her? So the two other
Speaker 2: guys like pin Bryce down, thinking that maybe he was
Speaker 2: assaulting Muriel, and then Ronda comes out and then suddenly
Speaker 2: Ronda's like, I can't feel my legs.
Speaker 3: Cut to so the er, that scene is exactly as
Speaker 3: chaotic as you just described, Like it is an experience
Speaker 3: watching that scene.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a lot. And then in the er in
Speaker 2: the hospital, it turns out that Ronda has a cancerous
Speaker 2: tumor that is pressing on her spine. That's why she
Speaker 2: couldn't feel her legs and she needs to have surgery
Speaker 2: immediately to have the tumor removed.
Speaker 3: Not to over cancer this discussion so much, but I
Speaker 3: did it did make me. I was curious, like how
Speaker 3: intentionally this was done. And apologies if you're an oncologist
Speaker 3: or a lover of oncologists, But the scene where she
Speaker 3: finds out that she has cancer and the oncologist sort
Speaker 3: of just drops that word into the conversation and she's like, wait,
Speaker 3: I have cancer and he's like, yeah, yeah, duh. Like
Speaker 3: that has been my experience with most oncologists, like when
Speaker 3: I was taking care of my dad over a course
Speaker 3: of years, where there's sometimes this and I get it,
Speaker 3: we're dumb, but like you have to say, like, okay,
Speaker 3: first things first, you have cancer, not just like okay,
Speaker 3: so here's what we have to do. We have to
Speaker 3: do on this timeline. Uh yeah, idiot, it's obviously cancer.
Speaker 3: I'm like, it's not best side manner. Where where is it? Anyways?
Speaker 3: I just felt weirdly validated by that experience and the
Speaker 3: doctor be like, oh, well, yeah, it's obviously cancer. Like
Speaker 3: you know, you have to say that, you have to
Speaker 3: say that.
Speaker 2: You have to use your words. I mean, I've talked
Speaker 2: at length on various podcasts and episodes of this show
Speaker 2: about my kind of distrust of the American healthcare system.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I found that a lot of doctors are
Speaker 2: not very good at communication, so no, and then there
Speaker 2: they should work on that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, anyways, there it is a very uh again, just
Speaker 3: like one of the many kind of abrupt like pace
Speaker 3: changes in the movie where it goes from like, oh,
Speaker 3: like Muriel's about to have a fun hookup with her
Speaker 3: crush to her best friend has cancer. And I just
Speaker 3: again was like so impressed that even though the like
Speaker 3: whatever gradient of things that happen is so all over
Speaker 3: the place, it never stops being a comedy. Right, but
Speaker 3: I'm sort of confused as to how that was even possible.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it's like, I mean, Rohnda has to have
Speaker 3: this surgery and and it seems that, you know, Muriel
Speaker 3: is her main source of support.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm. Yeah, this will become clear in a few
Speaker 2: moments before that, Muriel calls home and finds out that
Speaker 2: her dad has left her mom and is currently in
Speaker 2: Sydney as well, facing an inquiry for accepting bra vibes
Speaker 2: after Muriel stole their money. But you also get the
Speaker 2: impression that he's been accepting bribes his entire career, so
Speaker 2: it's like not a new.
Speaker 3: Thing, and that right, and that it's just like this,
Speaker 3: it happens to be the thing that people caught up on.
Speaker 3: And also, I mean, it becomes clearer as the movie
Speaker 3: goes on that her dad is always doing things that
Speaker 3: seem altruistic but are without fail to improve his own position,
Speaker 3: which you know, because at first I was kind of
Speaker 3: surprised when he goes on TV and he's like, Muriel,
Speaker 3: we love you, we're you know, we don't care about
Speaker 3: the money. But then it's like, oh, he was doing
Speaker 3: that to make him more sympathetic in this big court
Speaker 3: case he was about to go through. He's like, he
Speaker 3: doesn't mean a word that he says, which we learn
Speaker 3: in even more kind of gruesome detail as the movie
Speaker 3: goes on.
Speaker 2: For sure. So then, and this is maybe to help
Speaker 2: Muriel cope with this news of her friend being diagnosed
Speaker 2: with CAM. But she goes into a wedding dress shop
Speaker 2: to try on a gown. She tells the shopkeepers that
Speaker 2: she's marrying her fiance Bill in September.
Speaker 3: Which is also like, ugh, that's her dad's name, Muriel,
Speaker 3: don't say.
Speaker 2: That, yeah, stick with Tim Sims. She also said her
Speaker 2: story straight lady. She also says that her mom can't
Speaker 2: come because she's in the hospital with a tumor on
Speaker 2: her spine aka what's going on with Rohnda. And by
Speaker 2: now we realize that Muriel is a serial liar. I mean, yeah,
Speaker 2: that was pretty clear from the jump, but it's like
Speaker 2: now happened several times.
Speaker 3: But I feel like that's the first example where it's
Speaker 3: clear that like lying is her coping mechanism because it's
Speaker 3: like she can't talk about she finds it really difficult
Speaker 3: to talk about what is actually bothering her, so she
Speaker 3: makes up weird lies that reference what is bothering right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she's pulling from source material aka other people in
Speaker 2: her life and then making up stories to make herself
Speaker 2: seem sympathetic. And it works. Yeah, because the shopkeeper out
Speaker 2: of section, they take photos of her in the dress,
Speaker 2: which Mariel puts in a wedding photo album, which we'll
Speaker 2: come back in a moment. Meanwhile, Ronda is in physical therapy.
Speaker 2: She's learning how to walk again. She's incredibly frustrated because
Speaker 2: she's unable to do much for herself. Mariel has to
Speaker 2: take care of her. But Mariiel's like, I don't mind,
Speaker 2: this is the best my life has ever been. It's
Speaker 2: as good as an Abba song.
Speaker 3: That made me tear up. That was really beautiful.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But then and then Ronda makes Muriel promise that
Speaker 2: they'll never go back to their hometown of Porpoise Spit
Speaker 2: and she's like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which I will say is for even though Ronda
Speaker 3: is the best character in the movie, I think, and
Speaker 3: she's the realist. I wonder if it's like if it's
Speaker 3: a youth thing or but like, I don't know that
Speaker 3: she necessarily realized what a big ask that is, and
Speaker 3: that it was sort of like said and not to
Speaker 3: say that Muriel wouldn't have done it or I mean,
Speaker 3: because it's like caretaking and like assisting is like one
Speaker 3: of the most important jobs that exists. But it was
Speaker 3: just I felt a little bit for Muriel in that
Speaker 3: moment where it's like, well, what do you say in
Speaker 3: that situation? Even if you have reservations, you don't want
Speaker 3: to seem like you're turning your back on your friend, right,
Speaker 3: So it was I felt for both of them in
Speaker 3: that situation, because of course it's like Ronda needs a
Speaker 3: lifeline badly because she was They literally bonded over hating
Speaker 3: where they came from right, But then in the same way,
Speaker 3: it's like, that's a lot of pressure, particularly on a
Speaker 3: new friendship, and so I just really felt for both
Speaker 3: of them.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they've only known each other for a few months.
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe, like and so it's like that is a
Speaker 3: really steep escalation, you know, but that's I mean, god,
Speaker 3: I again, it's just like obviously very specific circumstances, but like, oh,
Speaker 3: two friends in their early twenties and a weirdly codependent friendship.
Speaker 3: Many such cases, many such cases, indeed.
Speaker 2: Yes, So one day Ronda sees this wedding photo album
Speaker 2: that Maryel has been compiling, and apparently she's been filling
Speaker 2: it with dozens of photos of her in different wedding
Speaker 2: dresses at various bridal shops across Sydney. And then Ronda
Speaker 2: catches her red handed, like in the middle of trying
Speaker 2: on a dress and assumes that Maryel has gotten back
Speaker 2: together with Tim's Sims. And this is the moment where
Speaker 2: Maryel finally admits that there is no Tim Simms. She
Speaker 2: made him up, and she's doing that because she just
Speaker 2: desperately wants to get married, because if she gets married,
Speaker 2: she'll be someone else. Because Maryel hates herself.
Speaker 3: And that is the moment in the movie. Room'm like, oh,
Speaker 3: this movie is so good. It's like directly confronting how
Speaker 3: we're conditioned to see marriage to some extent where a
Speaker 3: lot of people are conditioned to see marriage is as
Speaker 3: like if you can do this, everything will be okay.
Speaker 3: When look at literally any marriage, it's so demonstrably untrue
Speaker 3: and like and the fact that like Ronda is so
Speaker 3: awesome in that scene, and we'll talk about like the
Speaker 3: conversations around ableism in this movie too, but like the
Speaker 3: fact that she, you know, is like get out of
Speaker 3: it because she's so afraid for Muriel and thinks that
Speaker 3: Muriel's re entering this abusive relationship right, And it's just
Speaker 3: like it's so emotionally charged and there's too much going
Speaker 3: on in their respective lives for them to be able
Speaker 3: to show up for each other in the way that
Speaker 3: they need to. And it's just like a ough it was.
Speaker 3: That scene is so heartbreaking and then also still somehow
Speaker 3: funny at the end because Ronda storms out and it's
Speaker 3: just like the two employees at the Bridle shop and
Speaker 3: a sobbing Tony Kollett and they're like hmmm, so what
Speaker 3: do we do?
Speaker 2: So we need that dress back now?
Speaker 3: Right, It's still like always there manages to be a
Speaker 3: comedic button on these like devastating scenes.
Speaker 2: It's wilds yeah for sure. Okay, So sometime later, Muriel
Speaker 2: meets up with her dad in Sydney. He berates her
Speaker 2: for stealing his money. Deirdre just happens to come into
Speaker 2: the restaurant, Oh my God, and she and Bill confirm
Speaker 2: that they're in love and that Bill has effectively left
Speaker 2: Muriel's mom Betty for Deirdre. Bill also tells Muriel that
Speaker 2: she has to move back in with her mom and
Speaker 2: she has like a few weeks to do it to
Speaker 2: avoid having to move back to Porpoise spit. Muriel goes
Speaker 2: through personal ads looking for men who are looking for
Speaker 2: a his wife.
Speaker 3: And this is like the maybe third or fourth time
Speaker 3: that the.
Speaker 4: Movie just likes a big name, totally different movie where
Speaker 4: it's like that this is the beginning of a this
Speaker 4: is the first act of a different movie.
Speaker 3: If we're like well into the second act of this movie.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 3: I just thought it was like it was pretty pretty
Speaker 3: awesome because that premise feels weirdly like old school rom
Speaker 3: comie of like I need to do this and so
Speaker 3: I guess I have to get married. Like that's the
Speaker 3: oldest rom com trope in the book.
Speaker 2: So I thought when I was watching this yesterday, yeah,
Speaker 2: for the first time, aside from that first scene I
Speaker 2: had already watched years and years and years ago. I
Speaker 2: thought that the premise of the movie was going to
Speaker 2: be that after she catches the bouquet at this wedding
Speaker 2: and all her friends are like, you'll never be the
Speaker 2: next one to get married, that Maryel will like go
Speaker 2: on a journey like just be hell bent on getting
Speaker 2: married to prove those friends wrong. And that is kind
Speaker 2: of what happens. But that's not even necessarily her specific goal,
Speaker 2: like other a lot of other things happen to like
Speaker 2: get her on this path of this marriage that she
Speaker 2: eventually has, which we're about to get to.
Speaker 3: But like, well, it's like because it's like the real
Speaker 3: inciting incident of this movie is meeting Ronda, Like that's
Speaker 3: what really changes things. It feels like I don't know,
Speaker 3: I feel like it's clear by the end that it's like,
Speaker 3: you know, platonic or not, Like Ronda is the great
Speaker 3: love of Muriel's life. And vice versa, even though you
Speaker 3: know they both make their mistakes, Muriel more than Ronda.
Speaker 3: But yeah, yeah, that scene, it's so I don't even
Speaker 3: know what I thought this movie. I thought it was
Speaker 3: literally just like my wedding is next week, aha, because
Speaker 3: that's so many movies like they're like, I guess it's
Speaker 3: one of those. But it's just so twisty turney this
Speaker 3: is to me when it turns into it accidentally turns
Speaker 3: into like sort of an aura for like ten minutes
Speaker 3: where it's like, there's this rich guy from a foreign
Speaker 3: country that you know nothing about. You're gonna marry him,
Speaker 3: but it's not serious, and you're like, I know this.
Speaker 2: One right, because here's what happens. So she finds a
Speaker 2: personal ad that seems promising, so she goes to respond
Speaker 2: to it. Meanwhile, Ronda reveals that her cancer has come
Speaker 2: back and that she'll never walk again, and Ronda's mom
Speaker 2: is insisting that she does move back home to Porpoise Spit.
Speaker 2: Muriel's too wrapped up in this other thing to really
Speaker 2: bother with what Ronda's dealing with. That's because Muriel.
Speaker 3: My read of that was like it almost felt like
Speaker 3: Muriel was like mirroring her mom a little bit in
Speaker 3: that sequence where the situation going on around her was
Speaker 3: too overwhelming and so she kind of like detaches from
Speaker 3: it and does something else because originally, I guess I
Speaker 3: misinterpreted it the first time I watched this sequence where
Speaker 3: I thought that like Muriel had all of it, like
Speaker 3: she wants to, say, in Sydney because she doesn't want
Speaker 3: to be in this toxic family dynamic, but she also
Speaker 3: wants to be in Sydney because she loves Rhonda and
Speaker 3: wants to be there to support her, And so I
Speaker 3: sort of thought part of the reason she was seeking
Speaker 3: out this marriage arrangement was so that she could continue
Speaker 3: to be around Ronda. But then Ronda is you know,
Speaker 3: when Ronda's mom sort of puts her foot down and
Speaker 3: is like, no, you're coming home, it seems like Muriel
Speaker 3: just freaks out and kind of detaches instead of fighting
Speaker 3: for Ronda in that moment, which is like very relatable
Speaker 3: for someone in their early twenties and over their head,
Speaker 3: but it's so heartbreaking where it's like Ronda needed someone
Speaker 3: so badly to show up for her.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Muriel is at this juncture in her life
Speaker 2: not the person to be able to do it.
Speaker 3: No, she like can't manage her own shit.
Speaker 2: No, not at all. But she does manage to meet
Speaker 2: this man who is looking for his wife. His name
Speaker 2: is David van Arkle and he's a swimmer who's trying
Speaker 2: to compete in the Olympics for Australia because he's from
Speaker 2: South Africa and there's a long history of South Africa
Speaker 2: being banned from the Olympics for being an apartheid state. Like,
Speaker 2: so he needs to marry an Australian woman to get
Speaker 2: like a green card or whatever the equivalent is, so
Speaker 2: that he can swim for Australia, and his family is
Speaker 2: willing to pay Muriel ten thousand dollars to marry this guy.
Speaker 3: Which is just like a totally different movie. It's like
Speaker 3: it's just so wild how what it intends, Like tonal
Speaker 3: Shift that is again.
Speaker 2: And so she meets this guy David, and Muriel's swooning
Speaker 2: over him because he's hot, handsome, and he's got a
Speaker 2: good physique and stuff.
Speaker 3: But to the point where it's like he doesn't she doesn't,
Speaker 3: or maybe she's so accustomed to being negged in front
Speaker 3: of her very eyes, because that's how her father, acts.
Speaker 2: And her friend, her former friends and her friends.
Speaker 3: Just like she's just so used to being negged to
Speaker 3: her face that David is like yucky, I don't like
Speaker 3: her to his like weird coach, and Muriel's like.
Speaker 2: Whatever, I'm like no, right. She seems thrilled at the
Speaker 2: idea of marrying him. He seems repulsed by her, but
Speaker 2: she breezes past that and.
Speaker 3: He'll give her, you know, ten thousand dollars that will
Speaker 3: allow her to extract herself from this financial obligation to
Speaker 3: her family.
Speaker 2: So yeah, so whin when so a wedding gets arranged
Speaker 2: between Muriel and David and there's a lot of media
Speaker 2: attention around it since David is this like star athlete,
Speaker 2: so she like gets in the tabloids and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: Cut to the wedding, Ronda is reluctantly there with her mother, Tanya,
Speaker 2: Cheryl and those women are there is Muriel's bridesmaids because
Speaker 2: they kind of came crawling back.
Speaker 3: That made my blood boil. I was so mad at
Speaker 3: Muriel in that moment for because you're like, oh, she
Speaker 3: grow up, she needs to grow up like she does. Yeah,
Speaker 3: she does. Honestly, I was like nice of Ronda to
Speaker 3: even show up.
Speaker 2: She's there quite reluctantly.
Speaker 3: It also feels like Ronda's doing something that like I've
Speaker 3: never done this at a wedding, but I've definitely done
Speaker 3: it at various events, just like showing up to be
Speaker 3: like here I am and how bad does it feel
Speaker 3: to see me right now? Yeah, it feels like Ronda's
Speaker 3: pulling one of those and I respect that totally.
Speaker 2: So they're there. Bryce is there for some reason.
Speaker 3: Again, just like another character that we really only encounter
Speaker 3: once or twice, who is given. I thought like sort
Speaker 3: of this deeper lore by showing up later where it
Speaker 3: seems like he first of all, he's dressed like he's
Speaker 3: going to a funeral, which felt intentional. He's wearing all black,
Speaker 3: and I think it's implied that like he's upset things
Speaker 3: didn't work out between him and Muriel, and like he
Speaker 3: seems really sad that she's getting married to someone else. Yeah,
Speaker 3: which is just a lot of lare. Even though he
Speaker 3: never speaks again, I don't think, No.
Speaker 2: He doesn't. We don't see him on screen. I don't
Speaker 2: think after this either, sometimes I was like, maybe I
Speaker 2: don't really get Australian humor. Is this supposed to be
Speaker 2: a joke?
Speaker 3: I think so. I mean I feel like the whole
Speaker 3: the whole wedding is like a combination of being a joke,
Speaker 3: but it's also like it's I found it genuinely unsettling
Speaker 3: to watch, Like though it is kind of like a
Speaker 3: horror movie in the way it plays out.
Speaker 2: It's yeah, it does kind of remind you of Carrie
Speaker 2: in like the prompt scene where she's like so excited
Speaker 2: to have one prom queen. Meanwhile, maryel is like grinning
Speaker 2: ear to ear. This is like her what she has
Speaker 2: been conditioned to think is supposed to be like, you know,
Speaker 2: the happiest day of her life. And she's so ecstatic
Speaker 2: she's getting married, which is what she's always wanted. And
Speaker 2: it doesn't matter that it's a sham marriage to a
Speaker 2: man who is disgusted by her. She's still like.
Speaker 3: It's it's devastating. And the way, and again it is
Speaker 3: like the way Tony Kleett like manages to straddle how
Speaker 3: tragic that is with how funny she is. We're like
Speaker 3: the huge spile and the like yeah, la like contrasted
Speaker 3: with people looking like they're at a funeral, like it's
Speaker 3: really unsettling and a little bit funny, and it's yeah,
Speaker 3: it is like I feel like the Carrie. That's a
Speaker 3: really good comparison and like somehow even worse than that,
Speaker 3: because we know that Muriel views marriage as a path
Speaker 3: to feeling seen and feeling validated and as a potential
Speaker 3: way to love herself. It's not like she doesn't fully
Speaker 3: understand that the marriage is fake, Like she knows that
Speaker 3: that's not something that she's going to be confronted by later.
Speaker 3: That was like in the text. So it's like she's
Speaker 3: smiling because she's and thinks that she's about to be
Speaker 3: able to love herself for the first time. It has
Speaker 3: like which isn't you know whatever. I mean, they're doing
Speaker 3: a business transaction. I don't really care about David's apartheid
Speaker 3: ass feelings so like, but but it's like she knows
Speaker 3: what's happening and is still so thrilled because of how
Speaker 3: she's been conditioned to view marriage. And it's so like,
Speaker 3: I feel like the moment you see her happiest is
Speaker 3: like I think it's Tanya. They all have very similar
Speaker 3: hair colors. Who looks at Muriel in her wedding dress
Speaker 3: and says like kind of in horror, like Muriel, you're beautiful,
Speaker 3: and she's like glowing at like hearing that from these
Speaker 3: women who have bullied her her entire life. And yeah,
Speaker 3: it's just like she's looking I mean, that's like Muriel's again,
Speaker 3: and it's like, how can you falter for that? I
Speaker 3: think all of us have done this to some extent,
Speaker 3: and everyone has had someone in their life that has
Speaker 3: been a more extreme exam it of like looking for
Speaker 3: validation from the people who are cruelest to them instead
Speaker 3: of focusing on themselves. And then you're just like you
Speaker 3: just want to shake her and be like Ronda's right
Speaker 3: over there, like when you stop talking to these people
Speaker 3: that But that's just I don't know. I just this
Speaker 3: movie is so good because you're like this is just
Speaker 3: like an abusive cycle that Muriel is caught up in, no,
Speaker 3: and like she's seeking out validation and love from people
Speaker 3: who just are not capable of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it reminded me of eighth grade because that's the
Speaker 2: journey that the Kayla character goes on throughout the whole movie.
Speaker 2: I was also so devastated because in this wedding scene,
Speaker 2: the one other character besides Ronda, who seems like she
Speaker 2: truly cares for Muriel and her well being. Is Muriel's mom,
Speaker 2: And she shows up at the wedding and she's late,
Speaker 2: but she's there like she had to take a cat
Speaker 2: like all that. Like her father was there to like
Speaker 2: give her away, and he'll so very cruelly. He's like,
Speaker 2: she's yours now, sir, Like.
Speaker 3: Well, and it's also like her her father is there
Speaker 3: because it makes him look good to be there again.
Speaker 3: It's like everything with him is selfish.
Speaker 2: It's about image, yeah, yeah, elevating his image. Her mom comes,
Speaker 2: she's alone, she's brought this gift that she's clearly intending
Speaker 2: to give to Mariel. Mariel completely like breezes past her
Speaker 2: and ignores her own mother, and.
Speaker 3: She starts crying and she starts crying, Oh my god.
Speaker 2: And then things just only get sadder from there with
Speaker 2: her mother. But I was just like, oh, like, Mariel,
Speaker 2: the people who love you, they are there for you,
Speaker 2: and you're like blowing them off, and it's so so sad.
Speaker 2: She needs to grow up.
Speaker 3: It's really sad. Yeah, And I'm also like she's like
Speaker 3: twenty two, like it's but but it. Yeah, the stuff
Speaker 3: with her mom again, it's I it's so it felt
Speaker 3: very I'm trying to think of a less corny way
Speaker 3: to say subversive, but let's just say it. But the
Speaker 3: way that the family is introduced at the beginning, at least,
Speaker 3: like I was not expecting to get so much depth
Speaker 3: in those characters, Like I'm so used to seeing like
Speaker 3: this is the family that she wants to get away from,
Speaker 3: and wouldn't you they suck, you know, And as time
Speaker 3: goes on, it's like, I mean, at least the way
Speaker 3: that Bill sucks is relentless, but it is so much
Speaker 3: more complicated and specific than you're you know, led to believe.
Speaker 3: And and the ways that her mother is just like ignored,
Speaker 3: the dynamic among the siblings, like it's not you know,
Speaker 3: like Dostoyevsky, but but there's a lot of depth to
Speaker 3: the way that this family processes having to know each other.
Speaker 3: I agree.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so many movies of a similar ilk or
Speaker 2: that would be sort of like maybe lumped in with
Speaker 2: this movie because wedding is in the title, have such
Speaker 2: tropy stock characters as far as like I mean, the
Speaker 2: leads also, but especially the like, you know, the family,
Speaker 2: you know, the mom and the dad, or the siblings
Speaker 2: or the best friends. And this movie takes time to
Speaker 2: show you how all of these characters are. They feel
Speaker 2: like real people. They aren't these tropy stock characters. They
Speaker 2: have layers, there's layers to them.
Speaker 3: It's shreky in it. Sure it's stree, but they're But
Speaker 3: but it's also because I mean, and I know the
Speaker 3: movie so it's over. But the like, I have complicated
Speaker 3: feelings towards the way that the Cruel Friends are portrayed,
Speaker 3: because they are sort of made out to be, you know,
Speaker 3: like sort of the brain dead bimbo stereotype. Right. But
Speaker 3: the reason I'm inclined to give this at least some
Speaker 3: of a pass is because of the like stock characters
Speaker 3: we're talking about, where, you know, the Cruel Friends are
Speaker 3: usually the protagonists in these movies, and Muriel is a
Speaker 3: side character. Someone with a disability is fully a side
Speaker 3: character that you don't get any insight into their inner life.
Speaker 3: Muriel's family they're like, you wouldn't know a thing about them.
Speaker 3: So it's weirdly like the people that you're used to
Speaker 3: seeing as protagonists, even like Bryce kind of disappearing when
Speaker 3: he seemed to be introduced as like, here's the love interest,
Speaker 3: just kidding, like he'll show up onths later. It just
Speaker 3: feels like, yeah, you're meeting these stock characters and then
Speaker 3: seeing them either deepened or written off in a way
Speaker 3: that they usually wouldn't be, and it's hard to be
Speaker 3: mad at it.
Speaker 2: It's interesting. Yeah, so uh, let's see what happens next.
Speaker 2: The wedding happens afterward, Ronda confronts Muriel for being a phony,
Speaker 2: because Muriel's like, my girlfriends who dumped me, they came
Speaker 2: crawling back because I'm famous.
Speaker 3: My bullies are literally obsessed with me. I was like,
Speaker 3: come on.
Speaker 2: Right, And Ronda's like, okay, well that is not impressive
Speaker 2: number one number two, I have to move back to
Speaker 2: Porpoise spit because you abandoned me. And she says, ooh,
Speaker 2: this is my favorite line. She says, maryel van Arkle
Speaker 2: is not half the person that Muriel heslop was.
Speaker 3: So true, so true. I just yeah, it's it's great.
Speaker 3: And then the fact that Ronda is then doomed to
Speaker 3: also hang out this bummer group of girls. I'm just like,
Speaker 3: oh my god, I was using why she goes along
Speaker 3: with that I would sooner be alone. I'm assuming that
Speaker 3: it's like it seems like when we see them together later,
Speaker 3: it seems like Ronda's mom invited them over. I think
Speaker 3: they're at Ronda's place. Yeah, because her so I think Ronda,
Speaker 3: like Ronda's mom was trying to like force Ronda to
Speaker 3: socialize with people she didn't like.
Speaker 2: Right because earlier, earlier in the movie, Ronda says, I'd
Speaker 2: rather swallow rite of blades than have drinks with the
Speaker 2: lux of you.
Speaker 3: And you're like, and the way the things end with them,
Speaker 3: well we have let's just get to the end of
Speaker 3: the movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, So Ronda calls Muriel out back in Porpoise
Speaker 2: spit Betty, Mariel's mom accidentally takes some shoes from a
Speaker 2: store without paying for them, and the same woman.
Speaker 3: Because her feet, her feet her mm hmm.
Speaker 2: And she paid for everything else. It just seems like
Speaker 2: she forgot to pay for and she has so much
Speaker 2: on her mind. Her family hates her and they're cruel
Speaker 2: to her.
Speaker 3: And it was also like and now that she's been
Speaker 3: abandoned by her husband, like she's never been more alone
Speaker 3: in taking care of the family, because she was like
Speaker 3: asking for basic help from her adult children and husband
Speaker 3: when things were quote unquote normal and everyone was saying no.
Speaker 3: So now it's like her work has been compounded even
Speaker 3: worse and everyone is still ignoring her. Who wouldn't shoplift
Speaker 3: under these circumstances.
Speaker 2: True, but she gets in trouble because the same woman
Speaker 2: who got Muriel arrested for stealing the dress. She narks
Speaker 2: on Betty.
Speaker 3: What a callback wild who thought we would see Diane again?
Speaker 2: Wasn't expecting her to make a return. But this is
Speaker 2: when Bill tells Betty that he wants a divorce. He's
Speaker 2: like leaving her once and for all.
Speaker 3: After he does the thing that he does, the fucking
Speaker 3: everybody and basically sweet talks Betty out of like having
Speaker 3: to serve any time because he's like, oh, I you know,
Speaker 3: all cops are my friends, which is like a red flag, right,
Speaker 3: But he's super nice to protect ostensibly to protect Betty,
Speaker 3: but it's just to protect his reputation absolutely, because he
Speaker 3: immediately becomes extremely cruel to her this and it's also, oh,
Speaker 3: it just made me so I hate him so much.
Speaker 3: Like the when they're on the way back and she
Speaker 3: was like, I meant to pay for it and like,
Speaker 3: I'm so tired, I really just need some help. And
Speaker 3: then he just turns the radio on and starts ignoring her,
Speaker 3: and I'm just like, why won't your head explode?
Speaker 2: Like it's tell me about it, nightmare. And then he
Speaker 2: tells her he's like divorcing her, and then he says
Speaker 2: the reason he wasn't elected to state government when he
Speaker 2: ran previously was because his family was such an embarrassment.
Speaker 3: I really thought for a second, because at this point,
Speaker 3: I'm like, this anything could happen in this movie. I
Speaker 3: was sort of hoping that she was gonna like shoot him,
Speaker 3: kill him. I sort of thought for a second, I
Speaker 3: was like, I wouldn't be mad if she simply shot him.
Speaker 2: I would wove for her to do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: But instead she's devastated. She lashes out at her son
Speaker 2: for not mowing the lawn. I think, or yeah, he's
Speaker 2: right there, and like this is the first moment we
Speaker 2: see her kind of breakdown, and then Betty dies A
Speaker 2: short time later. Maryel is told that it was a
Speaker 2: heart attack, but we find out that Betty died by suicide.
Speaker 3: And that this and this again just like such a
Speaker 3: fucking twist of the knife because we find this out
Speaker 3: from a character who Joni, Muriel's sister, who were introduced
Speaker 3: to in this very like one liner jokey way, because
Speaker 3: every time we heard from Joni, she's like your terrible Mariel,
Speaker 3: like that's her like catch phrase, and she's like the
Speaker 3: younger sister I think, who always is like, haha, you're
Speaker 3: in trouble. And that's kind of the only thing we've
Speaker 3: known about her other than she rips SIGs hanging out
Speaker 3: on the couch. That's what we know about this character.
Speaker 3: But then you get like this moment of incredible depth
Speaker 3: into this character in a way that you just like
Speaker 3: aren't expecting. Where Joni found her mother's body, Yeah, was
Speaker 3: able to glean that it had been a fatal pill
Speaker 3: overdose and that the doctor had covered this up at
Speaker 3: the father's request because quote unquote he's been through enough,
Speaker 3: and so the fact that it was still like this
Speaker 3: poor woman's like final cry for help was not going
Speaker 3: to be heard because of the person who is abusive
Speaker 3: and horrible to her, like it's just uh, and then
Speaker 3: the way he acts at the funeral, it's just like
Speaker 3: But anyways, that that moment with Joanie is like really perfect.
Speaker 3: I mean, she's like the it seems like the brothers
Speaker 3: are kind of in shock. Weirdly, the youngest daughter seems
Speaker 3: like she's inviting her crushes to the funeral question of Mark.
Speaker 3: That was weird.
Speaker 2: I couldn't I forgot she was one of the siblings
Speaker 2: half the time, because I think we don't see her
Speaker 2: in some of like the dinner scenes or something, or
Speaker 2: she's like focus.
Speaker 3: Everyone processes death differently whatever, But like, but just seeing
Speaker 3: Jonie in that moment, be like what am I going
Speaker 3: to do without her? And realize like, oh, yeah, they
Speaker 3: were extremely close and like almost every time you see Joni,
Speaker 3: she's with her mom, and and that before the movie's over.
Speaker 3: In a way that it is also kind of made
Speaker 3: me feel sad, was that you could already see sort
Speaker 3: of the beginning stages of Jonie beginning to fill the
Speaker 3: role that her mother filled in her in her dad's
Speaker 3: life of like, you know, then she like hollers down
Speaker 3: to him from the balcony and is like, games on,
Speaker 3: want me to get you a beer? And it's like
Speaker 3: the daughter sort of filling this servile role that the
Speaker 3: mom filled and to someone who just like couldn't deserve
Speaker 3: love less.
Speaker 2: It's just got I know this.
Speaker 3: This movie is about breaking out of the cycle of abuse.
Speaker 2: I know. And then you mentioned so. The funeral is
Speaker 2: the next scene, and we see that Bill piece of
Speaker 2: shit that he is, is more concerned about how the
Speaker 2: press perceive him.
Speaker 3: It's clear he like called the press to be like,
Speaker 3: you're gonna want to come to my what my wife's funeral?
Speaker 2: Wife's funeral? And he doesn't seem to be grieving at all,
Speaker 2: or it's just he's so horrible. And this is the
Speaker 2: moment that Mauriel realizes not only what a prick her
Speaker 2: dad is, but that she is similar to him in
Speaker 2: the sense that she cares too much about what other
Speaker 2: people think of her. She has lied to people and
Speaker 2: sabotaged meaningful relationships along the way, and she doesn't want
Speaker 2: to be like that anymore. She breaks down her husband,
Speaker 2: David Van Arkle.
Speaker 3: Who again like this is a a It seems like
Speaker 3: another movie is about to start, and then it does
Speaker 3: it and you're like, yay, but I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: he came what he came to the funeral?
Speaker 2: He consults her, this is the first time he's been
Speaker 2: any manner of like tender toward her, which feels kind of.
Speaker 3: Like a payoff of one of the few interactions we've
Speaker 3: seen with them before, another very depressing movie, very depressing
Speaker 3: scene in a movie that's full of them. But when
Speaker 3: they get back to his like fancy apartment after their
Speaker 3: wedding and you know, all the pretenses are dropped and
Speaker 3: he's like, all right, there's your room. I'm gonna go swim,
Speaker 3: and like can kind of feel how meaningful the wedding
Speaker 3: was to Muriel and asks her like who the hell
Speaker 3: marries someone? Like why would you marry someone who's a stranger?
Speaker 3: And she's like, well, you dude just said that and
Speaker 3: he's like, well, it's because I want to win, and
Speaker 3: she's like so do I, and like they're talking about
Speaker 3: totally different things, but you see that that like affects
Speaker 3: him in some way. But you're like, I don't know
Speaker 3: if that's but it clearly it does come back because
Speaker 3: whatever thought this you know, fucking goof is capable of having,
Speaker 3: at least it was like, oh, I was viewing this
Speaker 3: person as a warm body and it turns out that
Speaker 3: they're a fucking person, which is a very low bar
Speaker 3: to clear, but many.
Speaker 2: Do not clear it this is true, but yeah, he
Speaker 2: consoles her as she's crying. They kiss, and I think
Speaker 2: it is implied that they have sex. Yeah, but the
Speaker 2: next morning she's like, I'm leaving. We have to break up, goodbye,
Speaker 2: And then her dad is like, Muriel, I need you
Speaker 2: to stay and help me raise the kids. Even though
Speaker 2: like how old are these kids? It seems like there's
Speaker 2: maybe one under eighteen?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought so too.
Speaker 2: They're like the youngest daughter is she's like a teenager,
Speaker 2: a teenager, but yeah, the rest of them seem pretty
Speaker 2: close to, if not in fully adulthood.
Speaker 3: Yes, we also learn that in the sort of towards
Speaker 3: the end of Muriel's mother's life that she burned the
Speaker 3: lawn because she was so frustrated that she wasn't able
Speaker 3: to get help with it. It just seemed like there was
Speaker 3: a lot of struggling that Muriel at very least didn't see,
Speaker 3: and I think to some extent with the kids without
Speaker 3: putting the blak because it is like pretty squarely on
Speaker 3: the father, but like a struggle that they weren't comfortable seeing, right.
Speaker 2: I think it's probably a combination of her mom was
Speaker 2: like good at hiding her various problems, and also that
Speaker 2: Muriel and her siblings were wilfully ignoring any signs that
Speaker 2: their mother was struggling because they didn't want to be
Speaker 2: bothered with it, or they were too focused on themselves
Speaker 2: or whatever else along those lines.
Speaker 3: And I think that there is this I want to
Speaker 3: be very careful with the way that I phrase this,
Speaker 3: but it's a dynamic that is familiar to me, not
Speaker 3: in like my specific family dynamic, but whatever I've seen
Speaker 3: it of kids perceiving specifically mothers, usually as weak and
Speaker 3: as targets of mockery in a lot of cases, and like,
Speaker 3: I don't want to be like her kind of thing
Speaker 3: without you know, considering how she got there, And yeah,
Speaker 3: like that, it just feels like a very specific dynamic
Speaker 3: that I haven't really seen a lot in movies. And
Speaker 3: also that like to some extent that Betty was didn't
Speaker 3: want her kids see her struggle because she doesn't want
Speaker 3: to worry her kids, and like we see that in
Speaker 3: scenes where you know, she's again very willfully ignoring the
Speaker 3: fact that Muriel has obviously stolen this money, and it's like,
Speaker 3: maybe it was a mistake, maybe it was my fault.
Speaker 3: I don't know anything's possible. And Muriel's honest, and she
Speaker 3: still doesn't want to quite want to hear it. She
Speaker 3: doesn't want to quite tell her kids why, like but
Speaker 3: only that's another reason where when you get that information
Speaker 3: later that Jonie was the one to find that she
Speaker 3: died by suicide, and that Jonie seems to be the
Speaker 3: only sibling who knows why their dad is gone, it's like, oh,
Speaker 3: these two characters had it, Like Jonie was her confidant,
Speaker 3: because Janie is the one that calls Muriel and it's like, yeah,
Speaker 3: Dad like left her. But then when confronted about it,
Speaker 3: Betty is like, oh no, don't worry about it. Oh
Speaker 3: I've got to go. We're getting raided by the government. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you're just like cut o. God, Like, I just hope
Speaker 3: in her next life, this this fictional character caught a
Speaker 3: fucking break, Like it just is so But yeah, I
Speaker 3: don't know, like it it's so tragic what happens to her.
Speaker 3: But I don't know. I mean, I thought that the
Speaker 3: movie showed a lot of care and thought towards her
Speaker 3: in a way that I wasn't used to in this genre.
Speaker 2: Totally I agree, and I was I mean the moments
Speaker 2: that were the most gut right and chinked to me.
Speaker 2: We're surrounding the Betty character because she's just so abused
Speaker 2: and neglected by her husband, by her children. She's just
Speaker 2: seems to be kind of waiting on people hand and foot,
Speaker 2: and no one is grateful, and no one checks in
Speaker 2: with her, and no one cares about how she feels
Speaker 2: and life it seems like except for Jonie right right.
Speaker 2: And Muriel is again too busy wrapped up in her
Speaker 2: own image and getting married to whoever will marry her
Speaker 2: to notice all the things that's going on with her mother,
Speaker 2: and it's just, oh, it's devastating.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But so there's this moment where her dad, Bill is like,
Speaker 2: you have to stay and help me raise the kids,
Speaker 2: and Muriel's like, no, I don't, that's actually your job
Speaker 2: as a parent. So goodbye, and she leaves. She goes
Speaker 2: to Ronda's house, who, like we mentioned before, is hanging
Speaker 2: out with Tanya.
Speaker 3: She's basically been kidnapped like her I think her mom
Speaker 3: is like forcing her to hang out with these assholes.
Speaker 2: Yes, And Mariel comes in and she asks Ronda to
Speaker 2: move back to Sydney with her, and Ronda, who is
Speaker 2: still upset with Muriel, is like whoelm okay, I forgive you.
Speaker 2: Let's go, and they get in a cab and the
Speaker 2: movie ends with the two of them yelling out the
Speaker 2: car windows saying like goodbye to the streets and the
Speaker 2: malls and the beaches of Porpoise. Spit and so let's
Speaker 2: take another quick break and we'll come back to discuss further, and.
Speaker 3: We're back will I've already talked about a lot of
Speaker 3: elements of the movie in the abstract that was By
Speaker 3: the way, kudos on the recap. That was not an
Speaker 3: easy recap.
Speaker 2: No, it wasn't. I tried to make it as like
Speaker 2: concise as possible, but again, just so much happens. There's
Speaker 2: so many tonal and narrative shifts throughout this movie that
Speaker 2: it was difficult. But I did my best. You did
Speaker 2: a wonderful jop, Oh, thank you saving much.
Speaker 3: There is one thing I just wanted to add to
Speaker 3: the tale end. I guess that could get a conversation
Speaker 3: started or not whatever. But with her dad towards the
Speaker 3: end of the movie, I think the last scene he
Speaker 3: appears in where like you said, like he's like Muriel,
Speaker 3: You're gonna have to raise your adult siblings for me,
Speaker 3: And she's like, no, I don't think so, pretty sure
Speaker 3: that you should have been doing that for twenty something
Speaker 3: years at this point. Yeah, but that her dad. I
Speaker 3: don't even know how to feel about it, because he
Speaker 3: is like, it seems like he has a moment of
Speaker 3: self awareness that I didn't think he was capable of having.
Speaker 3: So I was a little bumped by it. It sort
Speaker 3: of felt like it was like trying to knit a
Speaker 3: bow on it where he it seems like the person
Speaker 3: that we've spent time with this whole time would be like, well,
Speaker 3: go fuck yourself, goodbye forever, like be cruel. But the Yeah,
Speaker 3: so this was a little schmalzy for me, But I
Speaker 3: did think it was an interesting choice that he kind
Speaker 3: of has this moment of lucidity and is like, you
Speaker 3: reap what you sew. It is basically admitting like everyone
Speaker 3: is leaving me because I have been nothing but selfish
Speaker 3: and which again just like really packs a gut punch
Speaker 3: for when Jonie calls down to him a character who
Speaker 3: he is also abused and lambasted as much as he
Speaker 3: has to anyone else in the family and she's like,
Speaker 3: what can I get for you? And you know, it
Speaker 3: just seems like she's mimicking the behavior that she saw
Speaker 3: in her mom of you know, like taking care of
Speaker 3: people even when they're horrible to you. And I don't know,
Speaker 3: I mean again, it's it's a very sad note to
Speaker 3: leave things on but his I don't know, she can
Speaker 3: we can we talk a little bit more about her mom? Yeah,
Speaker 3: just because I mean so much of the movie, the
Speaker 3: end of it becomes about her mom. Where we were
Speaker 3: getting at this in the recap where it's such a
Speaker 3: complicated thing because it's it's very clear that like Betty
Speaker 3: is so struggling with depression and it seems like she
Speaker 3: uses denial as a tool to get through the day basically,
Speaker 3: and then the reference that she had been taking sleeping
Speaker 3: pills for a while, which is also like possibly a
Speaker 3: self medication technique, Like you know, that her life was
Speaker 3: not easy and she'd been conditioned to believe that no
Speaker 3: one was ever going to care about it. But that also,
Speaker 3: I mean that it's a tricky and I guess I'll
Speaker 3: just like leave it this because I don't know how
Speaker 3: to properly have this conversation really but how her being
Speaker 3: put in this horrible position by her abusive husband also
Speaker 3: means that her self medicating and you know, sort of
Speaker 3: willfully passively allowing him to continue his reign of terror
Speaker 3: has negative effect on her kids. And it's tricky because
Speaker 3: I don't want to victim blame her, But in parental
Speaker 3: situations like that, especially, it's so hard to talk about
Speaker 3: because there's like a wounded part of me that's like, well,
Speaker 3: isn't she kind of enabling this abuse towards her children
Speaker 3: by never calling it out when it's happening right in
Speaker 3: front of her, which of course is an offshoot of
Speaker 3: her being abused and probably fear of retaliation from her
Speaker 3: husband and all of these horrible things. But in the
Speaker 3: same way, it's I mean, it's just a very sad
Speaker 3: situation to see because it's like he, you know, the father,
Speaker 3: is laying into any of his kids at any given opportunity,
Speaker 3: and she's very often right there and kind of pretends
Speaker 3: it doesn't isn't happening, or will say something behind his back,
Speaker 3: but not to It's just it's just really sad to
Speaker 3: take a family that's like so thoroughly abused, especially by
Speaker 3: someone as narcissistic as Bill, who will turn on the
Speaker 3: charm anytime someone who isn't his family is in the room.
Speaker 2: And I think, I mean, it's effective because it's so
Speaker 2: emblematic of real dynamics. I think, like we're so used
Speaker 2: to watching Hollywood movies that often like sugarcoat these things
Speaker 2: or ignore them, or if there is an abusive family dynamic,
Speaker 2: it's portrayed in this trophy way or like jokey or
Speaker 2: cartoonish way or something. And this being like an indie
Speaker 2: Australian movie, we were like, oh, this actually resembles authentic
Speaker 2: human dynamics. Obviously not all of them, but like, this
Speaker 2: is this is a familiar dynamic that I've observed in
Speaker 2: other people. I mean, there are It's not a one
Speaker 2: for one, but I've I kind of saw a little
Speaker 2: bit of my family in.
Speaker 3: Sure Likewise, likewise.
Speaker 2: Where like my dad is a narcissist, he was not
Speaker 2: outwardly cruel to my siblings and I, but he was
Speaker 2: certainly like emotionally negligent. And then like my mom would
Speaker 2: try to challenge it sometimes, but usually it was easier
Speaker 2: for her to just kind of like power through and
Speaker 2: do the best buy her kids as she could. And
Speaker 2: I feel like we weren't always as great well as
Speaker 2: we should have been for our mom's attempts at keeping
Speaker 2: things stable in the household, and we didn't do a
Speaker 2: great job of considering how she might be feeling and
Speaker 2: stuff like that. Yeah, so I was like, oh, this,
Speaker 2: there's some familiar stuff. I've experienced variations of this in
Speaker 2: my own life.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, it reminds me a lot of an aunt
Speaker 3: and uncle that like, yeah, I spent a lot of
Speaker 3: time where it's just and how it is portrayed as like,
Speaker 3: you know, on a long enough timeline, this is just
Speaker 3: normal for them, Like, oh, yeah, this is just how,
Speaker 3: And I think it is. The movie doesn't bash you
Speaker 3: over the head with it, but that Muriel is just
Speaker 3: any time she's nearer her father until the very end
Speaker 3: when he realizes that, you know, he has no more
Speaker 3: power to exert over her. She's not going to go
Speaker 3: back because she's concerned about her mom. Because her mom
Speaker 3: isn't there, she is no longer financially obligated, Like she's
Speaker 3: extracted herself from this cycle of abuse that her family's
Speaker 3: caught in. I think it's sad and realistic that the
Speaker 3: whole family is not liberated from it, at least not
Speaker 3: right away. But anyways, towards the beginning where he calls
Speaker 3: her lazy, he points out, like I spent all this
Speaker 3: money on her and she can't even type, and she's like, yes,
Speaker 3: I can, and he's like, no, you can't. He body
Speaker 3: shames her, like, and it seems like her response to
Speaker 3: that is just like she's tremendously depressed the second she
Speaker 3: leaves her life. I mean, it's a mess because she's
Speaker 3: like twenty one or whatever, but like, but she immediately
Speaker 3: gets a job, Like she immediately is able to do all,
Speaker 3: like live independently in the way that her dad would
Speaker 3: tell her every day she couldn't possibly do. And it's
Speaker 3: like right, because being away from that energy and that
Speaker 3: horribleness is what would allow you to just be a person.
Speaker 3: And it's just I feel like the storytelling does that
Speaker 3: so effortlessly, where it literally is like cut to her
Speaker 3: having a job that she likes, because you could do
Speaker 3: that in the nineties, I think. But I just thought
Speaker 3: it was like, really, yeah, the dad is the source
Speaker 3: of terror is just.
Speaker 2: Like so clear, right, And it also informs probably why
Speaker 2: she puts up with the abuse from Tanya and all
Speaker 2: of those women who are so cruel to her, because
Speaker 2: when you've become accustomed to abuse, then you going back
Speaker 2: to my family, like my mom was raised by a
Speaker 2: very abusive mother, and she has said to me many
Speaker 2: many times, like that's why I married your dad, who
Speaker 2: was like not good to me. But that's what I knew,
Speaker 2: Like that I tolerated it because that's really all I understood.
Speaker 2: So you have the sense that Maryel hangs out with
Speaker 2: these women who are outwardly cruel to her be because
Speaker 2: she has just become accustomed to this abuse from her father,
Speaker 2: and then she starts to I mean, it takes her
Speaker 2: a little while to liberate herself from it. But this
Speaker 2: friendship with Rhonda is, like you said, like the catalyst
Speaker 2: that gets her on a path of liberation. And that's
Speaker 2: like the core, what like the core of the movie
Speaker 2: as far as like I read it, it is like, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, as far as like Muriel's arc, I wanted
Speaker 2: to get into that a little bit because yeah, again,
Speaker 2: Muriel starts out as this person who's lying to people,
Speaker 2: she's stealing dresses, she's trying to fit in with this
Speaker 2: crowd who doesn't want her. She ends up marrying a
Speaker 2: guy who seems repulsed by her, just so she can
Speaker 2: say she's gotten married. She's like basically living a false life. Meanwhile,
Speaker 2: throughout this she has made one actual friend in Ronda.
Speaker 2: She's the one person in Mariel's life aside from her mom,
Speaker 2: who accepts Mariel for who she is. Ronda doesn't tolerate
Speaker 2: Maryel being like dishonest and phony, and we see her
Speaker 2: call Maryel out for that, But when she's being an honest,
Speaker 2: genuine person, Ronda loves Mariel for who she is. But
Speaker 2: when you know Ronda needs her the most, Mariel abandons
Speaker 2: her in favor of this wedding and all the attention
Speaker 2: she's getting, Yeah, because she's finally living out this fantasy.
Speaker 2: And then Mariel's arc culminates partly because she sees how
Speaker 2: horrible her father is being at her mother's funeral. She
Speaker 2: realizes that she's living this sham life that she's been,
Speaker 2: you know, as disingenuous as her shitty father. And then
Speaker 2: she leaves it all behind to reunite with which is
Speaker 2: like a very interesting story and not one that you
Speaker 2: generally see because one it shows a woman who's a
Speaker 2: mess in a way that again just feels authentic to
Speaker 2: real life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not misogynists. It's just like you are given
Speaker 3: all the information that you need to understand, however misguided
Speaker 3: and occasionally very selfish. What Muriel is doing is you
Speaker 3: understand where it's coming from, and like you're rooting for
Speaker 3: her to do better, and I get It's like, I
Speaker 3: kind of love how the movie teases you with a
Speaker 3: potentially really shitty ending right at the end where like
Speaker 3: she opens the church door and her fake husband's there
Speaker 3: and he maybe likes her now, but and I think again,
Speaker 3: like a lesser movie would be like, oh, they're gonna
Speaker 3: fall in love. But then she but it's like the
Speaker 3: strongest she ever is that she's like I don't love
Speaker 3: you like I Yeah, it's and you're just like woo.
Speaker 3: And he's like I don't love you either, but you
Speaker 3: could live with me, and she's like no.
Speaker 2: And serves more than that.
Speaker 3: I really love that moment. Yeah, that like she's able
Speaker 3: to see I don't know. I mean, God, may everyone
Speaker 3: be so lucky to realize in their early twenties that
Speaker 3: they're repeating the mistakes of their parents, and I was like, yeah,
Speaker 3: that's in some ways it is a fantasy film, but I'm.
Speaker 2: Sure some people have managed to do it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I mean, yeah, her friendship with Ronda is
Speaker 3: so life changing and so like life affirming and yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, because like we see Maryel being a mess
Speaker 2: for the bulk of the movie, but it's very different
Speaker 2: from that like rom com version, like Hollywood rom conversion
Speaker 2: of a woman who's a mess quote unquote, because that
Speaker 2: always feels very cart tony and trophy, and it's like
Speaker 2: she's a mess because she's single and she works too
Speaker 2: much at her magazine job and that's why she's single,
Speaker 2: and she just needs a boyfriend to cure her messiness.
Speaker 2: And we don't get any of that with the Murial character.
Speaker 2: And that's another thing that's so interesting about this movie
Speaker 2: because so many movies from this era that central woman
Speaker 2: as a protagonist are about her finding hetero love and
Speaker 2: that being the thing that fulfills her. But this movie
Speaker 2: is about her personal growth and her solid friendship or
Speaker 2: like perhaps because of a solid friendship with another woman
Speaker 2: who supports her and cares for her.
Speaker 3: And I love that.
Speaker 2: It's a great.
Speaker 3: Movie exactly exactly I mean, and also that I mean
Speaker 3: all of us fakes. Like the title, the title is
Speaker 3: basically a joke where you know, she becomes I mean,
Speaker 3: she becomes disabused of all of these things because is
Speaker 3: basically a coming of age movie of everything that she's
Speaker 3: told is going to like make her the right kind
Speaker 3: of person, which at the beginning of the movie she
Speaker 3: so badly wants to be, to the point that she's
Speaker 3: being very or she's been conditioned. I don't want to
Speaker 3: put it all on her, but like she's being very
Speaker 3: self destructive in pursuit of being anybody but herself, and
Speaker 3: marriage is the ultimate way to become a different person
Speaker 3: in the way that she's been socially conditioned, which still
Speaker 3: happens right, And it's like she's at her saddest when
Speaker 3: she's trying on wedding dresses, she's at her least authentic
Speaker 3: when she's getting married, and at her kind of cruelest
Speaker 3: to the people in her life. She blows off her mom,
Speaker 3: she ignores Rhonda like and then does this sort of
Speaker 3: really condescending like, oh no, I don't want you to
Speaker 3: hang out with us, I got you a plane ticket,
Speaker 3: and then she's like fuck you Like, so she's at
Speaker 3: her the sort of like she's at her worst and
Speaker 3: she's living out her fantasy. Yeah, and I you know,
Speaker 3: it's it's a little broad, but it also it just
Speaker 3: like it works so well in the story of like,
Speaker 3: you know, maybe Muriel will get married someday, but not
Speaker 3: for the reasons that she did the first time, because
Speaker 3: it seems like she, you know, like really is at
Speaker 3: least well on her way to understanding that that is.
Speaker 3: And I think unfortunately, through a lot of tragedy and
Speaker 3: seeing how tremendously depressed her mother was until the end
Speaker 3: of her life and just knowing that, like she had
Speaker 3: to move forward another way to do right by herself
Speaker 3: and honestly, I think, to some extent do right by
Speaker 3: her mom's memory too. I think that it is like
Speaker 3: I feel like where they attribute to her mom to
Speaker 3: you know, liberate herself from this dynamic that her mom
Speaker 3: was trapped in. And then Rhonda, I just love this
Speaker 3: broad She's so great. But let let's talk let's talk
Speaker 3: about rod. I mean she I don't know, it is
Speaker 3: really I love seeing friends become friends really fast in
Speaker 3: a convincing way. I love just all of it. And
Speaker 3: they're like, Yep, we're gonna move in together. We're best
Speaker 3: friends now, blah blah blah. She's really horny. She's having
Speaker 3: three ways with sailor American sailors. Whatever. But let's talk
Speaker 3: about Yeah, this is a character who is able bodies
Speaker 3: at the beginning of the movie and is disabled at
Speaker 3: the end of the movie. She's using a wheelchair permanently, which, yeah,
Speaker 3: let's let's talk about it.
Speaker 2: I mean, this one's a little trickier than our than
Speaker 2: most of our conversations surrounding disability, because it's often a
Speaker 2: character who from the moment we see them on screen
Speaker 2: till the end of the movie, they are disabled the
Speaker 2: entire span.
Speaker 3: Mccaulluff Time, macaulay Culkin.
Speaker 2: And Saved right is my go to example. Yeah, right,
Speaker 2: played by an able bodied actor, which is often the case,
Speaker 2: which is what warrants the criticism. In this case, it's
Speaker 2: a little trickier because she is able bodied for i'd say,
Speaker 2: like the first half of the time we see her
Speaker 2: on screen, so it makes the casting trickier. I'm inclined
Speaker 2: to give this a little bit of a pass, or
Speaker 2: at least some leeway because of the circumstances of her
Speaker 2: being an able bodied character for part of it. But
Speaker 2: it's tricky.
Speaker 3: It's tricky. I am inclined to agree with you. I
Speaker 3: would also like, I would love to hear what our
Speaker 3: disabled listeners feel about this character, because obviously weird like
Speaker 3: not the be all and opinion of this. Of course,
Speaker 3: I don't feel qualified to make the call, but I
Speaker 3: think as as far as how Ronda is written, I
Speaker 3: was like, particularly for nineteen ninety four, pretty impressed with Again,
Speaker 3: it seems to push back on some popular tropes around disability,
Speaker 3: where you know, at the beginning, when I mean just
Speaker 3: the medical frustration that we've both experienced versions of of,
Speaker 3: you know, being talked to either like you're a baby
Speaker 3: or a scientist by a doctor and nothing in between.
Speaker 3: And you know, and and Ronda again, because she's just
Speaker 3: a very blunt person. You know, Muriel's like, what is
Speaker 3: he saying? She's like, he's saying, I'm like fucked but
Speaker 3: he can't say that, you know, and seeing her frustrations,
Speaker 3: and you know, Muriel's saying something that is coming from
Speaker 3: a good place, but it's something we hear a lot
Speaker 3: around disability of like no, Ronda you're going to walk,
Speaker 3: You're going to walk again, which is her encouraging Ronda
Speaker 3: and doesn't want her to lose hope, which is totally fair,
Speaker 3: but I think also buys into this idea that an
Speaker 3: able bodied life is the only one worth having or
Speaker 3: the only one to strive towards, even though it's not
Speaker 3: you know addressed explicitly you Know Ronda as time when
Speaker 3: we flash forward, like, Ronda is understandably tremendously frustrated and
Speaker 3: sad when she loses the use of her legs and
Speaker 3: struggles with it, but it seems like she's ultimately more
Speaker 3: frustrated that she has to move home than anything else.
Speaker 3: And by the time we see Ronda at Maryelle's wedding,
Speaker 3: she seems like comfortable in her wheel. It's just how
Speaker 3: other people talk to her and treat her that's the problem.
Speaker 3: Where it seems like, when she gets past the initial
Speaker 3: shock and adjustment of living with a disability, that it's
Speaker 3: mainly other people who are the problem. We see it
Speaker 3: in a so much casual ableism that is explicit in
Speaker 3: the movie. It's like played for laughs to make the
Speaker 3: person doing it look bad because it's the ladies in
Speaker 3: the dress shop where oh my god, what was the
Speaker 3: and like Ronda's like, get the fuck out of my way,
Speaker 3: where she said you just can't come in here and
Speaker 3: threaten brides, I don't care how unfortunate you are, and
Speaker 3: Ronda says fuck you, which is the only response to
Speaker 3: that sentence. There's a moment with Ronda's mother where Ronda's like,
Speaker 3: I don't want to sit in the front of the
Speaker 3: wedding because she doesn't really want to be there is
Speaker 3: the reason. But you know, Ronda's mom is very casually like, well, good,
Speaker 3: you won't be in anyone's way. And then I think
Speaker 3: the most over the top example is the evil Friends
Speaker 3: talking to her like she has died and her being like,
Speaker 3: I'm not ditch Cheryl.
Speaker 2: You're like right, because one of them says something like
Speaker 2: you were so full of life and it's like I
Speaker 2: still what am here?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: Just because I'm disabled now doesn't change that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And she's also just she's also telling them that
Speaker 3: she's beat cancer, which is like amazing, Like but yeah.
Speaker 3: We see her encounter a lot of like quiet and
Speaker 3: loud ableism throughout the movie, and it's always pushed back
Speaker 3: on and again it's just like, I'm sure that it
Speaker 3: is not a perfect depiction by any means, but I
Speaker 3: appreciated that it was even acknowledged, because I feel like
Speaker 3: so many movies just perpetuate ableism and don't acknowledge that,
Speaker 3: like this is a problem that able bodied people don't
Speaker 3: know how to talk to anybody who isn't like them.
Speaker 2: Like totally. Yeah, I think for like a movie from
Speaker 2: the mid nineties, it does surprisingly well in that regard.
Speaker 2: This is a topic which we can, you know, move
Speaker 2: on to or address later. But I was kind of
Speaker 2: reminded the same way that you know, characters are hurling
Speaker 2: ablest macro or micro aggressions at Rhonda. There are examples
Speaker 2: of white characters committing racist aggressions in a way that
Speaker 2: the movie tends to seem to present it as like,
Speaker 2: look at this foolish person saying this foolish thing. But
Speaker 2: at the same time, the movie has a cast of
Speaker 2: almost exclusively white people and certainly only gives interiority to
Speaker 2: the white characters, right, so it kind of undermines the
Speaker 2: spotlight on oh, look how foolish this racist person is.
Speaker 2: But yeah, there's like there's yeah, I don't want to
Speaker 2: get too specific, because some of them are really gross, but.
Speaker 3: It's mostly anti Asian racism. Yeah, I was noticing a
Speaker 3: lot of anti a racism and also anti Indigenous racism.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, because there's there's a reference to Bill doing
Speaker 2: a real estate development project on land that Aboriginal people
Speaker 2: had been living on and those Indigenous people were displaced
Speaker 2: so that a resort or something could be built, and
Speaker 2: then Bill is talking about this and like carrying on
Speaker 2: as though I deserve recognition for the great work I
Speaker 2: did to build this you know, development, and it's just
Speaker 2: like completely dismissing the you know, the violence and displacement
Speaker 2: toward the Aboriginal people who we don't see on screen
Speaker 2: or never meet any Aboriginal people in this movie. So
Speaker 2: it's we do.
Speaker 3: Meet Aboriginal people in the other movie that stars that
Speaker 3: actor that came out that year.
Speaker 2: But yes, which we discussed and you can go back, and.
Speaker 3: Also has its own problems. Yeah, but yeah, no, I
Speaker 3: felt like, you know, the reason for me, and again
Speaker 3: it's not for me to make this call, but part
Speaker 3: of the reason that I didn't find the movie to
Speaker 3: be tremendously ablest is because we have a disabled character
Speaker 3: who we love and who pushes back against the ableism
Speaker 3: and like loves and accepts herself. It's the circumstance she's
Speaker 3: frustrated with right, but with the it seems like they're
Speaker 3: trying to go for a similar thing. But it's like,
Speaker 3: if your cast is all white excepting very passing, you know, interactions,
Speaker 3: then those jokes are not gonna land, at least for us,
Speaker 3: not particularly well, because there's no one there to push
Speaker 3: back on it. So it's just like, haha, they are racist,
Speaker 3: which is not a particularly effective joke.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 3: It's like yeah, it's like, you know, you can say, well,
Speaker 3: we hate those characters and this is just another reason
Speaker 3: to hate them, but it's like, well, we already hated them. Again.
Speaker 3: It's like, if you want to go there, if that's
Speaker 3: the route you want to go, don't only cast white
Speaker 3: people because it's like it's the racism in the room
Speaker 3: with us kind of vibe.
Speaker 2: Yeah for sure, not.
Speaker 3: To say that. I mean, you know, I'm not accusing
Speaker 3: the director of being racist. I'm just like, you need
Speaker 3: representation of more than white people obviously, but also like
Speaker 3: those jokes aren't going to land in an all white cast,
Speaker 3: and it's like silly to expect them.
Speaker 2: To, right to the point where you're not even sure
Speaker 2: what the intent was with those jokes. It's like, is
Speaker 2: it to call out the white people for being racist?
Speaker 2: Or are we supposed to be laughing along with the joke?
Speaker 2: Because the movie doesn't make that super super clear.
Speaker 3: In nineteen ninety four, I don't know what the answer is.
Speaker 3: Anyone's guessed, right, So yeah, no, I totally agree with you,
Speaker 3: And it's that's unfortunate because I think that, like by
Speaker 3: writing Rhonda's Care so thoughtfully, that this movie is able
Speaker 3: to push back on a lot of ablest tropes, So
Speaker 3: it's unfortunate that it sort of just plays into lazier
Speaker 3: tropes around racism.
Speaker 2: Also wanted to talk about the body shaming and fat
Speaker 2: shaming that particularly Muriel's character is subjected to different family
Speaker 2: members and friends of hers or former friends fat shame her.
Speaker 2: But then you also learn that Tony collect gained weight
Speaker 2: for the role, and not that I don't want Tony
Speaker 2: Collette to get roles, especially starmaking roles like this, but
Speaker 2: productions throughout history have had a bad habit of not
Speaker 2: casting fat actors or just actors of varying body sizes.
Speaker 2: And instead either casting an actor and then requiring that
Speaker 2: they gain weight or putting them in a fat suit.
Speaker 3: Which also feels I mean what I mean, We unfortunately
Speaker 3: don't need to go back very far in movie history
Speaker 3: because this still very much happens. It was a lot
Speaker 3: of the discourse surrounding the Whale, which one Brendan Fraser
Speaker 3: a fucking oscar. It's I don't know, I mean, like
Speaker 3: we've had this conversation on the show before, but I
Speaker 3: was disappointed to learn that. Not shocked given the nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety four of it, all right, but certainly disappointed because
Speaker 3: it's just like Tony Klette is tremendously talented, so are
Speaker 3: actors that aren't rail Thinn. You know, like, if this
Speaker 3: is canon to this character who we love, cast accordingly,
Speaker 3: you know, it's.
Speaker 2: Right, there are available actors of all sizes, and if
Speaker 2: the role requires an actor to be a certain size,
Speaker 2: there's already an actor who's that exact size that could
Speaker 2: have been cast without requiring that they make any changes
Speaker 2: to their body.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, And it's it's so wild because it's just like,
Speaker 3: but although I guess you couldn't make a movie in
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety four in Australia without this guy Bill, so
Speaker 3: Bill to be there's only like sometimes when you see
Speaker 3: Australian movies, I'm like, are there ten working actors in
Speaker 3: this country? Like what is going on? Bill is in
Speaker 3: all of them? That's so wild?
Speaker 2: Yeah it's it's I mean, and good good.
Speaker 3: For him, but yeah no. But I'm glad that you
Speaker 3: pointed that out because I was also like, I need
Speaker 3: to do more research, and then the research made me
Speaker 3: sad many such cases. Let me see. That's like, I
Speaker 3: think most.
Speaker 2: Of what I had I didn't have much else. We
Speaker 2: covered a lot of stuff during the recap. I think
Speaker 2: the last thing that I wanted to just include was
Speaker 2: a quote from a piece from The Guardian by an
Speaker 2: Australian writer named Karen Pickering, who wrote kind of like
Speaker 2: a retrospective review in twenty seventeen about this movie entitled
Speaker 2: Mauriel's Wedding is a feminist masterpiece and more relevant than ever.
Speaker 2: She doesn't go quite as like intersectional as our discussion
Speaker 2: has been, but she does point out a lot of
Speaker 2: the positives which I tended to agree with. So I'll
Speaker 2: just share a few quick paragraphs from this quote. Lots
Speaker 2: of little moments resonate with me as a feminist observer.
Speaker 2: Rhnda is totally and unapologetically sex positive, and when her
Speaker 2: casual sex partners think a guy is taking advantage of Maryel,
Speaker 2: they intervene on her. Behalf. Bryce is an example of gentle, respectful,
Speaker 2: and war masculinity, which you could maybe because of how
Speaker 2: strong he comes on you could maybe disagree with that,
Speaker 2: but anyway, Yeah, well, David is positively influenced in this
Speaker 2: direction by Mauriel. Also maybe up for debate. Undoubtedly, patriarchy
Speaker 2: is the decisive factor in creating Muriel's reprehensible dad, in
Speaker 2: the behavior of her hapless siblings, in the power differential
Speaker 2: between her mother and father, and even in the despicable
Speaker 2: deirdrech Chambers just a sad woman in a bad man's world.
Speaker 3: I guess that we didn't really talk about Deirdre, but
Speaker 3: I don't have that much to say other than it
Speaker 3: seems like she is coded as like, here's a woman
Speaker 3: who will step on anyone to achieve some notoriety or comfort,
Speaker 3: such as you know, participating in MLMs. And I mean also,
Speaker 3: oh oh, I wanted to bring this up in the
Speaker 3: conversation about Muriel's mother about Betty what Deirdre says about
Speaker 3: her towards the end of the movie where you know,
Speaker 3: Deirdre says again, just because Betty, even from beyond the grave,
Speaker 3: is being punished by her piece of shit ex husband
Speaker 3: says like, oh, you know, this is gonna make Bill
Speaker 3: look a lot more sympathetic in the press, so at
Speaker 3: least her life had a purpose. And I was like,
Speaker 3: you fucking it, Like I just oh, I like my
Speaker 3: blood was. I don't know how someone said that about
Speaker 3: my mom and our relationships up and down, but like
Speaker 3: I would hit somewhat. That's like, oh my god, how
Speaker 3: did Deirdre not take one to the fucking nose on that?
Speaker 2: That was like, uh, I don't but.
Speaker 3: I respect what the what the writer's saying, and it's
Speaker 3: true and it is I'm sure it's like canonically true,
Speaker 3: but I'm like, I know, I hate that bitch. I
Speaker 3: hate that bitch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, she's awful. Just to finish out this quote,
Speaker 2: the writer goes on to say Bill has exemplifies a
Speaker 2: particularly Australian strain of toxic masculinity. He's matro corrupt, racist,
Speaker 2: cruel to his children, and wholly abusive to his poor wife.
Speaker 2: The most likable he ever gets is when he's grudgingly
Speaker 2: impressed by Muriel giving him the what for before she leaves.
Speaker 2: I don't know if that's an Australian expression, but I
Speaker 2: don't know what the what for?
Speaker 3: The what for? I think it's just like standing up
Speaker 3: to him kind of.
Speaker 2: That makes sense finally, And how can we understand her beautiful,
Speaker 2: tragic mom without factoring in the misogyny and sexism that's
Speaker 2: kept her in this home full of people who treat
Speaker 2: her so badly. Yeah, but in Mariel's case, it's also
Speaker 2: a patriarchal fantasy that keeps her alive, the dream that
Speaker 2: one day she'll be a success because someone will want
Speaker 2: to marry her unquote. And yeah, I think that's the
Speaker 2: last thing I wanted to just touch a little bit
Speaker 2: more on as far as this idea of And Mauriel's
Speaker 2: not alone in this. I've met people throughout my life
Speaker 2: were who cared more about getting married than who they married,
Speaker 2: or like everything was focused on the wedding. The wedding's
Speaker 2: the happiest day of your life, and it's like, will
Speaker 2: what about the relationship after that?
Speaker 3: Or like, but what I really appreciate about this movie
Speaker 3: is that I think that a lot of even like
Speaker 3: movies that are ostensibly feminist, and not to say that
Speaker 3: this doesn't happen, because sure it does. Some people are
Speaker 3: simply vapid, right, Like it happens across the gender spectrum.
Speaker 3: But I think that sometimes when particularly a woman is
Speaker 3: perceiving marriage this way, movies that sort of taut themselves
Speaker 3: and pat themselves on the back for their own feminism
Speaker 3: are like, look at this fucking loser who's not like
Speaker 3: cool and feminist, like the main character who has never
Speaker 3: made a mistake in response to patriarchy. Like it's like,
Speaker 3: what makes me really appreciate Muriel even more is that,
Speaker 3: like she's drank the kool aid, and a lot of
Speaker 3: people drink the kool aid, and some people even get
Speaker 3: drink the kool aid and get married and then realize fuck.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's it's really hard to you know, against
Speaker 3: a culture that is still this adamant about merit for sure,
Speaker 3: and then also I mean whatever, there's We've talked about
Speaker 3: marriage plenty on the show. But I just really appreciated
Speaker 3: and it felt rare that, you know, I think when
Speaker 3: we see movies that surround women and weddings. Very often
Speaker 3: it's just like she's getting married. It's like done with
Speaker 3: the assumption. That's like, and of course we know this
Speaker 3: is the most important day of her life, and blah blah,
Speaker 3: blah blah. It's just like assuming that you have drank
Speaker 3: the kool aid. And then there's movies that I think
Speaker 3: are like corny bad twenty tens feminism, that are like
Speaker 3: any woman who wants to get married is an agent
Speaker 3: of the patriarchy, where it's like the truth is always
Speaker 3: going to be somewhere in the middle there. And with Muriel,
Speaker 3: it's like she's being disabused of this really patriarchal structure
Speaker 3: that is all she knows. And it's not until she
Speaker 3: escapes and lives a little bit and connects with someone
Speaker 3: on a deeper level through Ronda, that she's able to realize,
Speaker 3: like and you know, until she literally gets what she wants.
Speaker 3: And it's horrible that she's like, well, I'm gonna get
Speaker 3: out while i can, and you know, and maybe she
Speaker 3: will find love down the line, we'll get married, maybe
Speaker 3: she won't. But it's just like it's cool to see
Speaker 3: someone be disabused of that and still have the movie
Speaker 3: be like wholy on their side, because it's a journey
Speaker 3: a lot of people have.
Speaker 2: To go on, definitely, And yeah, I don't I don't
Speaker 2: blame people for having been conditioned to like disproportionately value
Speaker 2: getting married or just like the idea of getting married
Speaker 2: or the idea of having a wedding, because there's an entire,
Speaker 2: you know, bazillion dollar industry built around that, there's and
Speaker 2: not for nothing, we love going to weddings and as
Speaker 2: to your wedding, but yeah, I mean so much of
Speaker 2: patriarchy does condition people, and especially women to strongly value
Speaker 2: the idea of getting married and not even like not
Speaker 2: like having a marriage and having a meaningful relationship with
Speaker 2: with a companion. It's just like you gotta get married.
Speaker 2: The subtext, according to the patriarchy is like become.
Speaker 3: A man's property, right, But it's like and then and
Speaker 3: then the whole you know lie the eresults in these
Speaker 3: like compet structure is that as a woman, you will
Speaker 3: become a more the most complete version of yourself exactly
Speaker 3: when you get married to a man. And so I
Speaker 3: think with every with every feminist movement, that the conception
Speaker 3: of marriage has been sort of adjusted or like altered
Speaker 3: by the right to make this very conservative notion Syne.
Speaker 3: And I mean, I'm fucking getting married next year, Like
Speaker 3: you have a fiance. I have a fiance, but it's
Speaker 3: because I simply really want to marry, like I'm excited
Speaker 3: about it, which is like, then do it. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I feel like people the way that people sell, particularly
Speaker 3: young women on marriage by praying on their self esteem
Speaker 3: is and during like second wave feminism of like, no,
Speaker 3: actually being married is a way to be self actualized.
Speaker 3: You're like, shut the fuck up, dude, Like there, you know,
Speaker 3: it's just interesting watching the news scams that people come
Speaker 3: up with. But you know, Muriel sees through the matrix
Speaker 3: at the end of the movie and realizes that friendship
Speaker 3: is the true wedding or something.
Speaker 2: No, if that's exactly it, And that's why I really
Speaker 2: appreciate this movie again, Like, yes, she she has more
Speaker 2: maturing to do. She you know, needs to learn how
Speaker 2: to be a more honest person. But it's this caring,
Speaker 2: supportive friendship with her friend Rhonda. I keep wanting to
Speaker 2: call her Rodna. I don't even think that's a name.
Speaker 2: That's a cool name, Rodna, It's Ronda I'm just having
Speaker 2: a bit of a brain thing today. But Ronda is, Yeah,
Speaker 2: the thing that she that Muriel needed to see the light.
Speaker 2: I love it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and just seeing especially with I guess the last
Speaker 3: thing I'll say about Rhonda and Uriel is that, you know, Ronda,
Speaker 3: part of what draws them to each other is they
Speaker 3: really admire each other and you know, and that even
Speaker 3: after Muriel kind of exposes herself as like I've been
Speaker 3: lying to you, Ronda's upset about it, she's hurt, but
Speaker 3: it doesn't make her think Muriel isn't awesome. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: that is like a true friend of like you know,
Speaker 3: and and not everyone would would do that, and maybe
Speaker 3: they would be right to write like that's a pretty
Speaker 3: big lie. But she's like, okay, fine, so Tim Sims
Speaker 3: wasn't real, You're still cool, like.
Speaker 2: Because in that moment, Maryel explains why she made Tim
Speaker 2: Simms up. She's like, exactly, I hate myself and if
Speaker 2: I was marrying someone, I could be a different person
Speaker 2: and I would love a different person, which like might
Speaker 2: and probably wouldn't even be true.
Speaker 3: Like no, I mean, well we learned that's not true
Speaker 3: because she marries some guy and this miserable.
Speaker 2: Right, so the way that she actually will love herself
Speaker 2: has nothing to do with marriage or being with a
Speaker 2: man or anything like that. She lays all this out
Speaker 2: and Ronda she hears that. She sees that, and she's like,
Speaker 2: this is still a person worthy of my friendship and
Speaker 2: like probably needs my help. They need each other, They
Speaker 2: need each other for sure.
Speaker 3: I love them. I love them. This movie passes the
Speaker 3: Bechdel test obviously a lot.
Speaker 2: Yes, lots of different combinations of characters talking about all
Speaker 2: kinds of stuff. There are discussions about men. Some of
Speaker 2: them are made up. Oh does it pass the test
Speaker 2: if you're talking about Tim Simms, who's not a real.
Speaker 3: Person feminist icon timsons. We don't know how Tim Simms identifies.
Speaker 3: We don't because Tim Sims is made up.
Speaker 2: Well, Tim Sims is a cop, so he's.
Speaker 3: See him, Tim Simms. I hate to hear it anyways, Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 3: it passes a lot, And honestly, most of the interactions
Speaker 3: about men are pretty anti men. It's yeah, I don't
Speaker 3: think this movie has a very high opinion of men.
Speaker 3: And that's why I and that's why I trust it.
Speaker 2: Wow, Titanic, I don't.
Speaker 3: Think if we've ever thrown that line in before, so
Speaker 3: for your consideration, it doesn't make any sense. That's why
Speaker 3: I trusted.
Speaker 2: Did you catch my Summer Heights High reference from like
Speaker 2: two hours ago?
Speaker 3: Oh my god, the.
Speaker 2: Curly haired beach yeah, may yeah, oh yeah, that's probably No,
Speaker 2: that's a jama and that's not Summer High High briber raids.
Speaker 3: I mix it up. Yeah, Jame meant a lot to me.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean, same spelling, different pronunciation.
Speaker 3: I think, so, just like there's an accent mark, I think.
Speaker 3: But yeah, yeah, so it passes the vectels test handily. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so but what about the one perfect metric, the nipple scale?
Speaker 2: Oh, you mean our scale where we rate the movie
Speaker 2: on a scale of zero to five nipples based on
Speaker 2: looking at the movie through an intersectional feminist lens.
Speaker 3: Why, yes, I do.
Speaker 2: Well in that case, I'll give this. I'm like between
Speaker 2: I want to see like a three and a half,
Speaker 2: maybe edging toward a four. There's a lot that I
Speaker 2: think this movie handles well. There's a few things that
Speaker 2: I'm a little dicey on that I think are very
Speaker 2: you know, criticism about how the movie handles like the
Speaker 2: racist microaggressions that different characters hurl head people, and the
Speaker 2: discussion around ableism and the discussion around body and body size,
Speaker 2: those are a little iffier. But because this movie at
Speaker 2: its core is about two women forming a friendship that
Speaker 2: is just like sweet, and it's not the healthiest friendship
Speaker 2: on account of Maurial lying a lot, but she learns
Speaker 2: not to do that, but she's working on and that's
Speaker 2: the thing too, Like there's so few movies about a
Speaker 2: messy woman who's messy in a way that actually feels
Speaker 2: like real life and that needs to learn and not
Speaker 2: be dishonest, not be lying to people, et cetera, because
Speaker 2: movies and society ever heard of it, well, except expect
Speaker 2: women to be these perfect little angels who are not
Speaker 2: allowed to misbehave in any way and who have to
Speaker 2: just be born perfect. And we have very little tolerance
Speaker 2: for messy women. And I love to see a movie
Speaker 2: about a messy woman, But I also love to see
Speaker 2: a movie about a messy woman growing, because messy people should,
Speaker 2: you know, grow and learn, right, And that's what this
Speaker 2: movie is all about. So I really appreciate it. And
Speaker 2: I'll land on like three point seventy five nipples and
Speaker 2: I'll distribute them between Tony Collette, the actor who plays Ronda,
Speaker 2: Rachel Griffiths, and Tim Sims imaginary imaginary King.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm gonna go three point seven five as well.
Speaker 3: I agree, particularly with regards to the racism and asking
Speaker 3: a I mean not Tony Kollett was not famous at
Speaker 3: this time, but having an actor gain weight instead of simply.
Speaker 2: Just casting an actor who's already the size of the character.
Speaker 3: Yeah, basically everything else about this movie I was really
Speaker 3: pleasantly surprised by. Like I was really blown away. It's like,
Speaker 3: it's a really funny, memorable movie about the cycle of
Speaker 3: trauma in families. And I still laughed so much and
Speaker 3: you could never predict what's going to happen next in
Speaker 3: this movie. I love Love Love just a story about yeah,
Speaker 3: like being liberated through friendship but still being a messy
Speaker 3: twenty one, twenty two year old, Like it just yeah,
Speaker 3: she feels so real and the performances are amazing, and
Speaker 3: I just feel like it's like this weird, awesome commentary
Speaker 3: on it's the exact opposite of what the poster leads
Speaker 3: you to believe, right, it's going to be And I
Speaker 3: really love that I got gotten big time. This movie
Speaker 3: got our asses because even the like, I mean, I'm
Speaker 3: sort of wondering if they were trying to market it
Speaker 3: as like, because this is kind of a hard sell
Speaker 3: to your average rom com goer, to be like, it's
Speaker 3: the most depressing thing you'll ever see. Prepare to not
Speaker 3: feel escape from reality at all, because the poster says,
Speaker 3: a comedy about a small town girl who didn't fit in,
Speaker 3: but it's about to learn how to stand out. Uriel's wedding,
Speaker 3: she's not just getting married, she's getting even I'm like,
Speaker 3: that doesn't feel like the movie. I feel like they
Speaker 3: were just trying to be like, it's a movie about
Speaker 3: a wedding, go see it, just trick people into going
Speaker 3: because it is a tricky sell. But I think it's awesome. Yes,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna do three point seventy five nipples. I'm gonna
Speaker 3: give them to Toni Collette. I'm gonna give one to
Speaker 3: Jocelyn Moore and Linda House, who were Yeah, the two
Speaker 3: producers of this movie were women. I'm gonna give one
Speaker 3: to editor Jill Billcock, who also who's just an Australian legend,
Speaker 3: also edited Strictly Ballroom Romeo Plus Juliet and Mulin Rouge
Speaker 3: and Oh my God, Kate Blanchette, another Australian legend. She
Speaker 3: also edited the Cate Blanchette Queen Elizabeth's movie Oh from
Speaker 3: the nineties. So I'll give one to her and then
Speaker 3: i'll give by last point five. Yeah, you know what,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna give it to Tim Simms as well, because
Speaker 3: he had me in the first act. Then it turns
Speaker 3: out he was a vengeful cop.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, wait, I take back my Tim Sims nipple
Speaker 2: and I'm gonna yeah, sorry, I forgot that he's a cop.
Speaker 3: Well I won't.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna give he's not real.
Speaker 3: But I do, like, I don't want Tim Sims to
Speaker 3: get any bright ideas.
Speaker 2: I do want to distribute some of my nipples to
Speaker 2: Muriel's mom and her sister Jonie.
Speaker 3: I yes, Betty and Jonie, I really And meanwhile, I'm
Speaker 3: the person that just screamed they're not real. I am
Speaker 3: so like. I just hope that Muriel calls Joni regularly.
Speaker 3: I was worried for Joanie at the end. I don't
Speaker 3: want Joni to get stuck in that pattern of abuse
Speaker 3: with her dad because it's not like he's going to
Speaker 3: ever improve. I'm like, Jony, I'm assuming you're an adult. Like,
Speaker 3: it's hard to tell how old people were in the
Speaker 3: nineties because they weren't using SPS sunblock and they were
Speaker 3: ripping STIGs. But like, my heart really went out to Joni.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I hope she moves on.
Speaker 3: I'm still keeping my nipples with timsim. That is fine.
Speaker 3: I allow it.
Speaker 2: And with that, listeners, thank you so much for those
Speaker 2: of you who have been frothing at the mouth for
Speaker 2: this Mariel's wedding episode. I know it's it's some of
Speaker 2: you at least. I hope you enjoyed it.
Speaker 3: We really enjoyed putting it together. Yeah, we hope it
Speaker 3: was worth the way because this was a blast.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a prospect on our wedding Webuary month
Speaker 2: last year. Yup, and it didn't quite make the cut.
Speaker 2: But here it is on the main feed, So yeah,
Speaker 2: what now?
Speaker 3: What now?
Speaker 2: But speaking of the main feed versus our Matreon, it's
Speaker 2: something you should subscribe to. You can go to patreon
Speaker 2: dot com slash spectal Cast. It's five dollars a month.
Speaker 2: You get two bonus episodes on amazing themes such as
Speaker 2: wedding Webruary. What a bargain and plus you get access
Speaker 2: to the entire back catalog. So check that out. Check
Speaker 2: out our link tree, our letterbox. You know, give us
Speaker 2: five nipples on your listening platform, all that good stuff, follow.
Speaker 3: Us on Instagram, and most of all, follow your heart.
Speaker 3: And with that, listeners, let's get in the car and always.
Speaker 2: Say it we Bye bye Street, Bye shopping Mall, I Cry,
Speaker 2: Bye surfer Boys, Bye Los Angeles, Goodbye Porpoise Spit. What
Speaker 2: a just I'd live there, No, I wouldn't, No horrible play.
Speaker 2: Goodbye Porpoise Spit, Bye Bye. The Bechdel Cast is a
Speaker 2: production of iHeartMedia, hosted by Caitlin Derante and Jamie Loftus,
Speaker 2: produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited by Mola Board. Our theme
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