148: Will Netflix’s Effort to Cut Off Password-Sharing Backfire? Plus: Is ‘Women Talking’ worth listening to?

Welcome back to across the movie. I’ll present it by Bulwark Plus. I’m your host, Sunny Vonage, culture editor of the Bulwark. I’m joined as always by listener Rosenberg of the Washington Post post Sadly, Peter Suderman of Reason magazine is out today. He should be back next week.

Alyssa, how are you?

I am happy to be talking came out movies with you.

With a friend. Yes. First up, in controversies and controversies, Netflix, wants to boot the free loaders off their site. In a move that’s been years in the coming, Netflix said that it’s going to start cracking down on password sharing. Now this is despite tweets from the company that said things like, you know, love is sharing a password.

Just kidding. Fold you. How it’s going to do so remains kind of unclear. For a while, Netflix had posted something in their FAQs about requiring users to check-in with their home ISP once a month to ensure continued accents. Meaning, you know, you’re gonna see more visits from the kids.

Mom and dad, they’re gonna come back from college, say, hi. Just log on to the WiFi for a minute. We’re gone. Bye. Bye.

We’ll see you see you in a month. Needless to say, people who share passwords are completely outraged by this decision. Doesn’t Netflix understand that there are some families who share passwords for and HBO Max and Hulu. So each family only has to, you know, pay for one subscription to get three services. Oh, they they do understand that.

That’s why they’re cracking down on this. Oh, okay. I mean, don’t they understand that far fewer people will watch their shows if they crack down on the password sharing? Oh, they they do realize that. They just don’t care if somebody who isn’t paying for it stops watching.

Oh, okay. Well, don’t they understand that this will lead to increased piracy again? What does it matter to Netflix? If people go from, like, not paying for the service one way to not paying for the shows another way. I don’t I’m not a hundred percent sure these people understand how economics works.

I mean, the only real question from Netflix Very simple one, while reducing the amount of password sharing overall increase lead to an overall increase in the revenue for the company. Now that can come in a couple of different ways. Right? Is for every account that cancels the service because they can no longer share passwords with kids in college or elderly parents. In nursing homes, will they gain more accounts as a result from the kids in college who wanna sign up from the elderly parents or just from the families.

If you have one family sharing a password with three other families, each of them taking one of the four profiles taken. What are the odds that you get two of those families show sign up or even just one so it’s a wash. Right? That’s a that’s a real question. I don’t know I don’t know what the answer is.

I come at this from a, like, almost a moral perspective. Right? I get very annoyed that people feel so god damn entitled to getting something for nothing. I mean, I just like it it like flames on the side of my face. I like it makes me crazy.

It is crazy making to me. And it is, like, genuinely shocking. Also, how many grown adults start saying on Twitter, you know, well, I use my parents and I feel like, you’re a you’re a grown ass person. Like, You have a home. You you have you do you not pay for your rent?

Do you not pay oh, you’re probably on your phone the parents’ phone plan too? I don’t know, man. I understand the times are tight. I understand people don’t like to pay for things sometimes, but I have a very basic baseline rule on this stuff, which is if you don’t pay for the things you enjoy, the things you enjoy go away. And Netflix is no different.

Even if the amount of money, they generate staggering. You’re thirteen bucks a month or you’re ten bucks a month or you’re twenty bucks a month depends on plan. Whatever it is, it may just be a drop in the bucket, but a bucket is nothing but a collection of drops. That’s all a bucket is. It just drops in the bucket.

Let’s say, am I taking this personally? Because we both work at subscriber driven publications. Is this is this me just reacting viscerally? To to people rejecting the business model that keeps me in in four k Blu rays and other. Comforts?

No.

No. You’re obviously correct. People should pay for the things that they wanna consume. And, you know, it’s if if what you’re saying is that Netflix is worthless to you, like, that’s fine. But what you’re saying is that the stuff that you’re complaining about losing access to is worthless.

And if you, you know, if you profess to care about the stuff at all, the people who are involved in making it, that’s pretty insulting. But I think this gets on a larger sort of inconsistency in the way Netflix has thought about itself and talked about itself. And, you know, as a result, the way it has sort of reshaped industry. Right? Which is that Netflix always had this, you know, at its heart, The pitch was it’s gonna spend an astonishing amount of money on content to create this sort of vast and ever expanding library.

So it’ll be a kind of everything store for pop culture. But also, you know, it let people have enormous latitude to not pay for that content. And there is an extent to which the desire to behave like Amazon to, you know, operate for a long time with losses, maybe fueled by some cheap debt. And to sort of keep expanding forever while also keeping in place something meant that you were likely to hit the ceiling on your number of subscribers sooner rather than later. Never quite made sense.

And, you know, Amazon has always you know, operated. And again, I am a wholly owned subsidiary of Jeff Bezos, and so take whatever I’m saying with a grain of salt. But, you know, the Amazon business model, you know, operated at losses for a long time because there were so many areas where it could get you to shift over your consumption. Right? And so, you know, first it was books, then it was tube socks and groceries and also movies.

And so it was getting you, it was hooking with low prices to shift huge amounts of your consumption onto its platform in a way that would be really hard to give up, but that would generate of constantly escalating streams of revenue in addition to the subscriptions from Prime. Netflix on the other hand was willing to lose money and spend huge amounts of money for a long time. But it there was never sort of a long term, you know, value play for them in terms of forcing people on the service and finding ways to make them spend more money there. And so the sort of the translation of Amazon’s business model into content ten was always sort of rocky. And even more so when you consider that the the sort of rush to streaming meant that all of these entertainment companies were narrowing down streams of revenue to one stream of revenue.

And so Netflix was always gonna get this point where it maxed out of the number of people who were voluntarily subscribing under the existing conditions and had to find more people to subscribe. In order to make Wall Street happy. Because the other part of the sort of strange economic transformation of the entertainment industry is that the entertainment businesses have become extraordinarily responsive to what Wall Street wants them to be doing. Right? And that became a sort of distorting effect as all of these traditional linear theatrical based companies sort of pivoted to streaming.

That was what Wall Street wanted them to do. It was what was good for their share price. But, you know, it was it was not necessarily what made sense from a revenue perspective. And so, like, what Netflix is doing is inherently uncontroversial in the sense that something that it obviously had to do. Right?

Like, the era of cheap credit is over. They have had their first subscriber losses, which means they’ve had to find a new pool of people to get subscribing at sort of the high price US levels as opposed to, you know, their cheaper alternatives overseas. And so the obvious pool of people to do that is people who like their content but aren’t paying for it. And so from a business perspective, it’s a totally non traditional thing to do. From a moral perspective, it’s a total not totally non traditional thing to do.

What’s controversial is that Netflix let this go on so long in a way that was I think not particularly wise for them, but also that set sort of unrealistic expectations as they were reshaping an entire industry.

Yeah. I I wanna hit on this for a minute because as annoyed as I am with the consumers who say, you know, oh, we deserve to keep getting the thing for free. And Netflix should be happy that we’re here not paying for things and watching. As much as I hate those people, I have no love for Netflix as a business entity. You know, leave it to set aside the movies and TV shows they produce, some of which are good, some of which are bad, whatever.

It’s like anything else. I find I find their business practices to be exceptionally bad. I mean, obviously, they’re a great success, so what do I know? But here’s here’s what they what they did. They essentially destroyed one segment of the market that creates and produces revenue for movies.

Right? They essentially destroyed the DVD Blu ray market and replaced it with the streaming market. And they did this by losing an enormous amount of money for a long time and offering this is very important. This is like the key fact of Netflix. They offered people a deal that was too good to be true.

They gave them too much content at too lower price with instant access and they built an enormous empire out of it. It’s working for them now. As you say, like, with the am with Amazon, you know, you if you there’s there’s a case to be made for losing money for a long time to create a subscriber base that you can then, you know, raise raise the rates on and whatever.

Well, an infrastructure that you can do cool things with. Right. Right? I mean, you know, you need to, like I mean, Netflix has to invest in server capacity, but it doesn’t have to build, like, the entire sort of two day delivery infrastructure that Amazon did and that allows it to provide a surface that is essential as opposed to merely fun.

Right. No. I mean, that’s I mean, the the key fact of on right is that it’s actually logistics company. It’s not a

it’s not

a place where you buy books and movies and socks. It’s it’s actually a giant logistics company. And Netflix hasn’t done anything similar, which is why Netflix is now like, okay. Well, we gotta find more people to subscribe. But I I resent I resent what Netflix did.

And I I am annoyed by it. And I, frankly, I shed no tears for the for the for the for the difficulties they find themselves. In now because they effectively convinced people that content, be it movies, TVs, whatever, should be as close to free as possible. And that you deserve to get it and you deserve to get that instantly right on your your your TV. And that’s an insane business and when now we are in a situation where we are seeing something like closer to what all of this stuff is actually worth.

You know what it’s actually worth? It’s worth the cost of cable. That’s what it’s that’s what it’s worth. We’re gonna talk about this in the bonus episode. Just all the various different streaming streaming services and which are which are the most valuable and which you should get rid of.

But, like, I I look at my I I sat down and added up how much I’m spending a month on on streaming and it is effectively what my cable bill is, which I still also have. I’m basically paying two cable bills now. Now, I’m in a special situation because this is my job. And I I’m not complaining about that. But we are now entering a moment where, frankly, it’s still actually undervalued.

And we’re gonna see that more and more as HBO raises prices as Hulu raises prices as Disney plus raises prices as peak hot rise, everybody’s gonna start raising their prices. And I don’t know what else. I I like Of course, they are because that’s what the stuff is worth. You know what you know what’s expensive? Making movies.

Making movies very expensive. You know what’s expensive? Make it TV shows. Make it TV shows extremely expensive. And we, as consumers, have gotten kind of stoiled by not having to shoulder the cost of that because debt was so cheap for so long.

And I think things I like,

The the

what is going to happen is we’re going to have a massive contraction in the amount of stuff that gets made, which is going to lead to some of these streaming services closing or merging was going to lead to a lot of lost jobs. I think this is gonna happen sooner rather than later.

Yeah. No. Absolutely agree. Look, if you’re mad at plex for convincing consumers to behave irrationally. I met with them them and Wall Street for convincing the in you know, the industry as a whole to essentially light its own business model on fire and under undo the financial underpinnings of a model that produced a tremendous amount of great art.

It’s a bummer. I mean,

it’s it’s insane to me. I like, again, I I feel I feel like I’m taking crazy pills because what what you ended up with was a situation where everybody looked at Netflix and looked at how over inflated the stock was and how much money and how much revenue they were generating and said, we can do the same thing. We can replace all of our revenue streams via stream.

Not only we can, but we have to. That

we have we gotta do this because this is what this is what stock market wants. So we’re gonna get rid of or we’re gonna undercut our theatrical revenue. We’re gonna get essentially, get rid of DVD Blu ray revenue. We’re gonna we’re gonna lose out on all of our, you know, cable streaming

— No. Right. —

and and we’re gonna put it all in streaming. That’s where we’re gonna get all our money from. And that’s just doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t work as a business model. I don’t understand how anybody anywhere looked at this and was like, ah, it’s a good thing.

We should do this. Clearly,

you know, studio heads, if you’ve been listening to across the movie, Kyle, you would have known better. Yes, Kyle.

I I again, I I don’t I try not to rant as much as I’m ranting right now, but it it was like, oh, I I didn’t know how? How did nobody see this coming? Trust

me, as the person who, you know, I’ve talked about this on the podcast before, you know, in my early days doing this, you know, more than a decade ago saying, like, you know, I I don’t see how unbundled. Like, the cable bundle was a good deal. I’m not sure how this is all gonna work. This financial model doesn’t really make sense, and it was just rude, roundly excoriate, just mocked by readers, left, right, and center. It’s like decade later.

Sorry, guys. It’s like it’s gonna get worse. You’re gonna have less stuff. It’s gonna be more expensive, and you’re still gonna be getting cable for sports.

You’re still gonna be getting cable. Anyway, alright. So what do we think? Is it a controversy or an controversy that Netflix is cutting off the moocher’s, Alyssa? That’s

a controversy. Everything that’s become come before that is a controversy. Yeah. It’s

obviously a controversy, but again, I I have no I have no sympathy for Netflix here. I have no sympathy whatsoever. Like, you you made your bet now you can lie in it. And if it takes your whole company down, so be it. Alright.

Make sure to tune in for our special bonus episode on Friday. We’re gonna rank the streaming services. Money is tight. Your bank account is limited. What is worth your precious dollars?

We’ll let you know. I have some strong thoughts on this too. So expect more yelling, sunny. And now we are on to the main event. Women talking directed by Sarah Polly.

It’s nominated for best picture Oscar and best screenplay, best original screenplay. Best adapted.

Best adapted. Best adapted. It’s a generic

because

it’s not Yeah. Best

adapted screenplay. Women talking is the story of a group it’s the story of a group of men and night women who after learning that men in their community had been drugging and raping them for years, including their young children, debate over whether or not they should do nothing, stay in fight, or leave their community forever. And so they’re going to, you guessed it, talk it out. That’s it. That’s the movie.

It is as the title suggests about women talking. And while that does sound a little bit like set up to a Roddie Dangerfield or AndroDice play drug, it is deadly earnest. This is a capital s capital m series movie. It’s when it takes great pains to ensure that it includes all women with its awkwardly shoe horned trans subplot and it’s a very obvious parallels to the b two movement and in Hollywood, and the the way that women keep telling good ally, Ben Wishaw, that he should listen, not speak, it’s all there. It’s just mindless and women talk.

I don’t wanna be entirely negative here. I’m just gonna be mostly negative in this segment. So let me say that I will say it has good performances by Fantastic actresses, Arunimera and Claire Foyer are both very good. Frances McDormant isn’t in the movie very much, but she did produce the the future seen she isn’t. She’s she’s quite good.

Jesse Buckley is solid, though I do kind of wonder if between this and men, and I’m thinking of ending things and the lost daughter, she is kind of being typed test as the woman who spends most of her time on screen making annoyed faces at and about men. I just I feel like might wanna branch out a little bit. I look, the movie as a whole, I I did not care for it at all. It it has this kind of horribly desaturated look that calls to mind emancipation, which we talked about a couple of weeks ago. It’s it’s almost black and white, but not white.

It’s just this horrible drab, blue gray, There’s nothing there’s there there’s no there are no interesting visual ideas in this film. There’s no real conflict. It’s just a lot of, like, shots people talking. And it’s it’s so self satisfied. And I gotta be honest, the movie got off on the wrong foot with me when In the opening moments, there’s a title card that shouts and all caps at us.

What follows is an act of female imagination. And this is just like the worst most annoying sort of, like, just artless button pushing. It’s just a finger on the scale that demands of us the the the critics and the voters for awards and all that sort of thing to be treated, you know, seriously, but also with kids’ gloves, frankly. You gotta talk about this movie respectfully. Despite the fact that its entire two hour running time is just them running around lighting straw men on fire and pretending that they’re revealing some kind of hidden truth.

I don’t know, I’m a man, so I would think that. Alyssa, you were a woman watching women talking. What did you what should you make of it? I

liked a lot of this. And I I totally understand why you and Peter did not like like this. And yet it got me in a couple of ways. Right? First, I think it’s a very effective evocation of what it’s like to live in the kind of mindset that most of us live in secular culture just do not have access to.

Right? I mean, you know, I don’t think either of us, you know, I don’t think either of us is walking around with a sincere belief. That if we do not live up to certain moral standards, we’re going to hell. Right? I mean, and that like hell is a real place and that the damnation of our souls is an urgent matter.

Right? I mean, I’m I’m speaking for you, but and I think, you know, a lot of moviegoers don’t really have access to that kind of mentality. And so I thought that the movie does a does a kind of remarkable job of tricking you into you know, using its plainness to sort of trick you into not realizing how alien this mindset is. To most viewers. Right?

I mean, this is a like, yes. There this is an argument about gender and violence, but it is very much an argument about what the right thing to do spiritually is. And, you know, the sort of turning point in the movie is one of the characters saying, she can’t stay in the community without doing things for which she will be damned. Right? And that is, you know, a moral imperative for these characters in a way that I think

is

just not accessible to most of us. It’s not something that a lot of us, you know, look, there are a lot of Americans who believe hell is real, there’s an actual possibility of going there. But the people who see women talking are not, like, there’s not a lot of overlap in that event I am willing to guess, in part because not a lot of people saw women talking period. And so I think the movie I found that really touching. And that’s something that does not work without the performances here.

Right? Without, you know, ONA sort of near like, you know, kind of ecstatic near heresy without Salome that’s Clairevoy’s characters, you know, just sort of agonized searching. I mean, there’s this line towards the end where one of the characters tells another that, you know, what we ask you to do is an was an abuse of forgiveness. Right? Like, we asked you to to, you know, suffer in a way that is sort of feel logically and spiritually deforming.

And, you know, I don’t I don’t know if that moment lands with everyone who watches the movie like it landed with me. But I found the spiritual components of the movie and that role in the drama very affecting. I also think it’s a movie about, you know, what does it mean to raise boys? And this is something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately, and my son is fifteen months old. I’m a woman.

I grew up in American society. I have a sense of the sort of the pitfalls that my daughter might face. But, you know, this sort of agonized deliberations among the women towards the end of the movie. It’s like, how you know, if we’re gonna leave this community, and we take some boys with us. What’s sort of the cutoff?

Right? Like, when does our obligation to raising these boys into responsible men end? And what if they’re resisting, what we have to teach? You know, there’s sort of dark comic element to how one of the characters resolves that question. But, you know, I mean, I again, like Ben Wishaw’s character, there’s this sense that’s, like, the women are leaving him behind.

To sort of carry on what they view as important work. And again, I just I found all of that very poignant. And that may be, you know, sort of very much where I am coming from in my life at the moment. But you know, I think that’s a that’s a sort of underrated part of the movie. Is, you know, women thinking through how to raise their sons to be the kind of men that they value.

And I don’t think the movie has sort of a simple answer for how you go about doing that. But it’s, you know, it sort of asked us a kind of agonized question. And then finally, I mean, you know, I I have been in a couple of different groups in my life where people made decisions by consensus. And it’s actually a really hard process. And the script gets very well at the sort of draining nature of those conversations.

Like, the characters have to take breaks. They have to get away from each other because they’re just sick of being in a room with each other. But it also is very dept at getting at the kinds of questions and moments that sort of break loose those deliberations. Right? So you know, when ONA asks, like, if we stay in fight, what are we staying in fighting for?

And that’s those moments in those communal deliberations that sort of reframe the discussion and break things open are not something I’ve ever seen depicted on screen before and that I found very interesting. And look, you know, I I don’t like the way this movie looks particularly either I think it would have been you know, I would have much rather seen it either in black and white or in full color. I think either of those would have been of a stronger choice and would have made those moments of strangeness like the census trucks showing up feel more jarring. And, you know, you would have seen the contrast between the way these women are living and the landscape and the intrusions to the outside world, just much more visually but I just I like the performances so much and those three aspects of the script just really got me. And, you know, I Again, I can’t begrudge either of you for not liking it, but it really I’ve I’ve thought about it a lot since I saw it.

And really found myself deeply touched by elements of it. Did you

were you not struck by I mean, I I you say you’ve never seen the this this kind of decision making by consensus done on on screen four. It’s not exactly the same thing, but What about, like, twelve angry men? I feel like there is a similar, you know, idea at the heart of that similar sort of structural thing going So there’s

a difference between something like that where it’s an artificial community that has to come together to make a decision. And the community that is sort of committed to living by consensus decision making, and that is debating sort of its own values. In a way that’s inscrutable to outsiders. Does that make sense? Sure.

No. That makes sense. Yeah. It’s just it’s just a little different. Yeah.

You

know, I

mean, something twelve angry men. The whole point of some of twelve angry men is, like, we’re gonna bring together all of these people who are very different and force them to forge a common decision, and they’re gonna confront all of the clashes in their values. And a sort of consensus movie, you know, it’s about taking these people who have decided to live in this you know, way that seems very strange to most people in the audience and buy a set of values. Like, they have a common set of values, and so they’re debating sort of within that narrower range. And they’re all invested at each other.

Like, the people at the end of twelve are in Green Med are never gonna see each other again. Right? And so the characters in this movie are making a much more momentous decision. It’s just slightly different to me. Yeah.

I’m a little

surprised, honestly. But but also interested that you took took the discussion of faith kind of at face value because it felt fairly mocking to be at least in large in large portions of the film. I mean, it it definitely felt like particularly the bit where they’re talking about, you know, the abuse of forgiveness. Like, look at look at this dumb belief system that is being abused for evil purposes. This is how they work.

Oh, I didn’t read

it that way at all. I mean, things like the, you know, the framing of like the final journey out of the community are I mean, that’s literally shot as an in vocation of the exodus. Right? I mean, it’s to the extent that there is sort of visual thought going into this movie. I thought it was very much in service of sincerity.

And in that scene where you have this discussion about the abuse of forgiveness, you know, that’s a moment of accountability for the characters in the movie. Right? I mean and again, it’s one of those moments that kind of breaks up in the deadlock where you know, the characters who have done something bad to, you know, one of their fellow women can sort of acknowledge it and she can be heard and that’s an important moment for them if they are going to, you know, sort of be able to live their faith in a purified and renewed way. I yeah. I took the movie totally at face value in terms of the depiction of the spirituality.

I mean, I think that there’s very much an understanding that what has happened to these women is a corruption. And it’s a discussion. I mean, it’s, you know, Scott put it in his review. It’s a debate between sort of exit and voice. Right?

Is this community as it’s currently constituted, purifiable, or in order to live our faith to a tighter standards, do we have to leave? I didn’t I didn’t think the movie at all was saying that like faith itself was stupid. I think it had enormous respect for the characters. Faith. At least that again, that’s the way it read to me.

You mentioned the

census truck. So there’s there’s a moment in the film where a census truck comes through this farm community, and we find out that it’s that it’s taking the census for the twenty ten census. Which I some people have said as, like, a big shock. Like, it’s it’s like the village, you know, the m night triamalan movie. But that’s also not really I didn’t I didn’t really take it that way exactly.

Did you how what was your read on that? Was it just supposed to did you just take it as,

like, Oh, look, this is

still happening now? Or what was your what was your read on that? Well, this is based on

a real — Right. Right. Right. —

and so

that didn’t, you know, knowing that going into the movie didn’t particularly surprise me. Look, I mean, there are insular religious communities all over the world and you know, some of them experience really terrible things from inside. I actually done that scene sort of charming. Right? Because it’s like, you know, the song itself Daydream Unlimited is such a cheesy song.

Right? And yet you see these, you know, younger girls who are part of the conclave be, you know, actually, like, drawn out and lured by it. And you know, for them, this like incredibly titillating thing is talking to someone from the outside world and not even like flirting but like being counted. Right? Like, they go out there and they’re like, no one else in the community is participating in the census.

And they’re, like, their big act of sort of floaty rebellion is to go, like, follow a guy in a truck with this like cheesy song from the sixties and like participate in the National Census. It’s sort of adorable and strange. And it’s kind of an illustration of, you know, the relative purity of heart of these, you know, but our fundamentally still children even though something incredibly terrible has been done to them. It’s like eating, you know, a candy with two layers. Right?

It’s like the outside tastes weird and then you get to the sweetness with it in that particular

scene. Alright. Which which do you prefer this or she said? Oh

my god. This by so so many yards, like just not even a question. In part because I think she said is terribly written. And I think this is not Right? I mean, this movie is sort of attentive to language and playful and has a dramatic art in the way that she said doesn’t have I mean, she

said

is so grotesquely sort of self congratulatory. I mean, even just the contrast between this movie is sort of approaches spirituality and the just like incredibly cheese ball scene of Ashley Judd and I said being like, I have to do this as a woman and a Christian. Like, Okay. Like, I yeah. I will say

I do. I I the the one thing I did like about this much more than she said is the fact that it is basically structured like a play where you have — Yeah. — you have an actual, you know, debate happening amongst the people. Again, I I, like, I’m not a hundred percent sure the the conflict at the heart of it really works just because the issue with question is so is so grotesque? And, like, the the answer is so obvious — Yeah.

— that

that, you

know, they have to leave. That I I don’t know that that works exactly, but But

again, it’s a question of the mindset. Right? It’s, you know, what feels obvious to us is not entirely obvious to these women and But this gets

alright. But let me let me just my my one last point is that this feels this it does not I I I just I I disagree with you when you say that this is a a movie that puts that puts us in the mindset of these people because it does feel like such a modern thing. It it cues to so many modern ideals and tropes. Again, I go back to, like, the kind of tossed in trans character who, like, is like, hey, look, you know, turns out she was a man the whole time. And, like, I’m sorry, I just I don’t think that this is how the the community would have talked about this.

I’m also surprised that that aspect of the movie hasn’t attracted more criticism just in the sense that it’s like, oh, sort of transness as a response to sexual violence. Right. Nobody but but but the movie makes

a very explicit point like she wasn’t made trans by the trauma. She was always friends, and we came to understand that. And I’m just like, I’m just Yes.

I don’t think that’s done in the movie works.

Yeah.

I don’t. I like I actually think that actress is fairly good, but I don’t think that. And I don’t know if that’s in Miriam Miriam Toose’s original novel. I haven’t read it, although I’m eager to now. But I don’t think that aspect of the movie works, and it also undercuts the poignancy of leaving August Ben Wishaw’s character, like, in the community.

Right? I mean, if they leave and he’s like the only good man left to be the bulwark, that’s very different than if you have sort of like, two men there to kind of keep the community going. Yeah. I I do not think that’s a plot worked. Alright.

So thumbs

up or thumbs down on women talking. Melissa. Get

down, thumbs up. Peter

told us over text he did not like it, but I will I will not guess a thumbs up or thumbs down on on his part. Maybe he can tell us when he comes back. Thumbs down for me. I just it does not. Yeah.

I I I I vaguely resent being made to watch this by the academy, nominating it for best picture. I it is I was hoping we could we could skip this movie entirely, but alas it was not. Not to be. Alright. That is it for this week’s show.

Make sure you tune into our bonus episode on Friday. Tell your friends, strong recommendation from a friend is basically the only way to grow podcast audiences if you don’t grow, we’ll die. He did not love today’s episode. If you wanna wanna talk to me on Twitter, you can do that at Sonya Bunch. I’ll convince you that this is in fact the best show in your podcast feed, or you can just yell at me.

That happens a lot too. See you guys next week.