the worst person in the world (2021)
when i saw the poster and premise for this movie i thought it was going to be a frances ha, ladybird esque movie that explored the manic pixie dream girl esque life of a late 20s woman but man it kinda spoke to me in a way i was not expecting it to.
The beginning is a little bit hilarious bc like, who in the world is going to med school solely bc their grades are incredible? i know these days people like this get weeded out pretty easily but idk maybe julie rlly is that academically smart. despite this nitpick of mine i think it establishes the type of person julie is pretty well, indecisive in a way that a lot of people are. am i like this? i don't think so, if anything i've been pretty certain and stubborn about the type of career i wanna do and the type of person i wanna be for the most part.. more on that later.
while this is pretty centered around the romance aspect i think its very interesting to see how julie navigates her relationships and how that kinda ties back to her jumping between career paths pretty early on in life. Just like she bounces between med, psychology and photography she kinda does the same with lets say, aksel, is kinda like her in medicine, eivind is like her in psychology and photography is the end, her single life. these careers very obviously do not overlap w the relationships she is in but its cool to think about it that way. i also literally pulled this analogy out of my ass like right now as im writing this review so maybe im being stupid.
why i like this movie so much is how imperfect julie and most of the characters in the movie are, like it is almost frustrating but at the same time you cannot really hate anyone that much, which is super realistic. it is also extremely modern, the incorporation of typical modern internet discourse, and even the way they talk to each other lets say all the therapy speak. also it shows how people are indecisive and really do change their mind about so many things in life. one of the main ones is all the characters who flip flop between wanting and not wanting children, makes julies miscarriage all the more frustrating to see.
i dont think there rlly is an overall message in the film its just a pretty amazing character study. the fact that the movie ends with julie single is also pretty great, i think you could definitely make a whole movie about that next chapter in her life but that would be an entirely different kind of movie.
i will say also the party where she meets eivind and they do all those things tgthr that technically do not count as cheating.... pretty greaat idk i loved those scenes it was a good way to show the rush of 'not rlly cheating' and also meeting someone new and connecting with them immediately in such a setting
one thing i can def relate to julie w is the instances where she is kind of an asshole (for the sake of being an asshole? or to just establish yourself idk how to explain it) i love doing that shit too. she does it at the party she crashes ('you know its bad to cuddle your children'). like i really understood why she acted like that in those instances, it makes sense to me...
also this movie made me feel so young. like i really got so much time and its actually incredible realistic to see julie still figure out who she is at age 30, a coming of age esque romance drama for 30+ year olds is pretty great
one thing that really stood out to me on second watch,,, and i wonder if this is intentional, is julie doesnt seem to have any FRIENDS? or at least friends that are not her partners. it very well might be bc i feel like a lot of women do fall into this lifestyle very easily (esp when they get older, all your friends are either married/have kids or both so it becomes increasingly difficult to maintain these).. it is also possible that this just wasnt shown, so julie has friends but none of these friendships are developing/developed in a way that profoundly changed her life in the way the romantic relationships did but.... this explanation doesn't make as much sense. i think the first one is pretty realistic (as sad as that is) but i myself cannot imagine letting social circle get so small and male-centered (fingers-crossed)
this might be the WORST review of the worst person of the world (2021) ever, it is moreso a reflection but im glad i got it out of my system