ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY (2016)
cassian.exe stopped working
#that last gif is my mr darcy hand clench ok!! via @rebeljyn
first of all: same.
Second of all: Listen. You can read the Elevator Scene™ as platonic. I don't know why you would, but you can - she thought this man was dead, and she was as good as dead, and then he came back and saved her life and they are stuck out of time in the middle of a D-day level battle and neither of them have words for this scenario. This scene can work for all kinds of love, really.
But this scene. This scene makes absolutely no sense to include if we were not meant to see a physical attraction develop here. What is the point of showing us Jyn's smile turning awkward, her little glance when she runs into him? What is the point of lingering on Cassian completely losing the plot when she briefly gets closer than anticipated after smiling at him like that? What, pray tell, is the point of showing us that if they're meant to be Very Professional Coworkers, or 'sibling coded' or whatever fresh hell the interwebs have decided this is post Andor?
Most of their scenes in the latter half of this movie are filmed beat for beat like a romance movie. Like we joke about the similarities to Pride and Prejudice 2005, but the visual language is genuinely doing the same thing: Circling around two people while they are locked in a very personal moment in a crowded room. Lingering on someone's reaction to a small gesture or a careless brush from their person. Cutting to a smile with a musical cue like it is the climax of your scene. The focus on brief physical touch. Even the act structure of specifically their relationship is really, really similar - look:
Pride and Prejudice 2005:
bad first impression: Netherfield ball
argument in the rain where both accuse one another of their shortcomings: first proposal
grappling with said shortcomings, adjusting behaviours: meeting again at Pemberley
big selfless gesture: Darcy "rescues" Lydia
protagonist stands up to allegorical antagonist: Lizzie blows of Lady Catherine, who is a stand-in for... pride and prejudice
soft dramatic handholding with sun just over the horizon: second proposal at dawn
fatherly approval: Darcy and Lizzie both get approval from her father
Rogue One:
bad first impression: Jyn is forced to work with Cassian
argument in the rain where both accuse one another of their shortcomings: Eadu shuttle scene
grappling with said shortcomings, adjusting behaviours: Jyn standing up to the Council, Cassian reckoning with his guilt and responsibility
big selfless gesture: Cassian offers Jyn an army (and himself)
protagonist stands up to allegorical antagonist: Jyn faces off with Krennic and, by extension, the Empire she has tolerated
soft dramatic handholding with sun just over the horizon: The Beach
fatherly approval: "Your father would have been proud of you."
I am not seriously positing that Rogue One is a retelling of P&P, okay? I'm just saying that the movie language is saying something here and it didn't fucking stutter.
I don’t want to say anything, but in the novel he’s standing even closer behind her, and she reaches for his hand. Honestly, judging by the way they both look downward in the third gif, she could very well have done that in the film too, we just don’t fully see it.But apparently, according to what I was reading today, none of that matters anyway, because Bix is supposedly the love of his life and Jyn is just some annoying college girl he basically just met. :)
