Film Review: “Violet,” Starring Olivia Munn & Luke Bracey, with Justin Theroux, 2021. Written and produced by Justine Bateman, distributed by Relativity Media and by Rogue Pictures.
Part character study, part psychological thriller
What an important film for counselors and therapists—and anyone who works with conflicted persons—to view. This is great information available on how an individual slowly breaks free of a terrible set of messages she deals with all the time.
In dealing with the homeless and with other persons going through hard times, it is sometimes easy to think of them as persons who are trapped—who are not doing enough to escape their daily nonsense and break their chains. How do they get their freedom? How do they stop drinking? How do they find a job? How can we help them if they do not want to help themselves?
Isn’t changing one’s life for the better an important and desired process?
Violet is a hard-working young woman who struggles to keep her employees happy, her boss happy, her room mate happy, and everyone else in her life happy. She has been forced to do this by parents in her childhood.
Now an adult, Violet is working in a highly-stressful job in film production. Impossible to keep everybody happy, she nonetheless strives every single day to do what everybody wants her to do.
She has ONE single good friend—and her male room mate—who both give her clues she can escape this hell of trying to be right, do well, please others, and save herself from the constant failure chasing her all over…
At the same time, she is scurrying around to please others—and to do what they expect of her—she sees images from her childhood threatening her. She also hears loud and argumentative comments in her head. She refers to them as the “voice.”
When with her best friend—who is always putting up with Violet—she is told to call the voice the “committee” that is telling her what to do. She needs this key friendship—and the one with her male room mate—to help convince her to become “free” finally.
However, her freedom comes from within, and she fights herself, her boss, her workers, her difficult brother, and shaming aunt, all by the end of the movie to get her freedom on her own.
This film is 100 times more complicated than some reviewers seem to understand. There is so much going on, and some of the weirder louder sequences in the film make good sense.
Understanding how the troubled mind works is essential to “getting” this film. Understanding the complexity of a person’s inputs and upbringing is also important.
This is a very important film to watch to understand the huge and strong voices some people are dealing with on a daily basis—and trying to fight so that they can finally become free. Of course, some people never do become free.
Violet is the kind of person we want to celebrate!