SPOILER DISCUSSION

1.The way Reed roleplays gets me laughing every time. He’s so focused on the details being perfect that he even pretends to do the grunts and moans of his intended victim, almost as if he doesn’t fully encapsulate the Other’s experience he’ll get something wrong. It’s comedic and reinforces the power play going on – it’s not just about physically domineering over someone as much as it is being able to map them out.

2.I love how even in his delusional phone call to Mona, the baby takes front and center. She’s more worried about him being sick and bringing back a cold to the baby than the task that he’s trying to accomplish, going so far as to tell him his best option is killing Jackie no matter what. It highlights that the presence of the baby is definitely the trigger behind Reed’s psychotic breakdown.

3. Based on the clues given about Jackie, I can assume that she wasn’t planning on dying during the night of the movie. Her apartment is fully furnished and is decked with nice appliances and the like.

As she mentions to Reed later on, she spends most of her money on the apartment and is primarily a homebody focused on material comforts. Dying seems out of the range of intended actions given this. Furthermore, based on the scars present all over her leg and her subsequent story about lying to the doctor about the bicycle incident, it’s impossible to ascertain if the injuries were due to depressive self harm or done for some other purposes. This becomes even more convoluted when she’s about to “kill” Reed because she pierces her nipple, inflicting another injury on her, as a way to commemorate the occasion.

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As such, I’d like to think her injuries are all trophies of a sort that are meant to remind her of the situations she’s been in – the intensity of the injury corresponding to the encounter.

4.Based on the clues given about Reed, it seems clear that his psychotic break was triggered by the birth of his baby, which probably caused his childhood trauma to come up. There are three figures in his past that are referenced through the film: bunny girl (Olivia Bond), his mom(Marin Ireland), and the first prostitute he kills (Maria Dizzia). When he starts tripping out under the influence of Jackie’s spiked food he sees bunny girl stab her bunny, then his mom having sex, then the man who his mom was having sex with being submissive, then flashes back to the first time he killed a prostitute along with a surreal set of images that suggest that this is repressed desire overtaking him, followed by an image of the bunny girl in the black latex his mom and partner were wearing.

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As a child he sees his mom engaging in S&M (complete with latex bodysuits for added effect). It’s unclear whether or not the man she’s with is his Dad or some random stranger, but it’s clear that the incident has seared itself in his head. If anything, he sees that his mOther’s desire is for this submissive man and codes that as the method of receiving love again. She ignores him, the child, in favor of the kinky sex act .The movie spends a while on the man being on his knees and Reed staring at him as he’s tripping out, so it makes sense if he takes submission as something horrifying. So far, he’s someone who’s afraid of losing his place and sees submission as a way of garnering affection and sex as something violent. The presence of his child distracting his wife might have made him feel the same sense of losing love as he did before.

If the bunny girl is an early childhood crush, maybe he mentioned the violent incident to her which is why she killed the rabbit, confusing the dominating violence of S&M with a real violence (as a child might) in an attempt to earn a young Reed’s heart, further cementing the connection between violence and sex to him. Based on the last image of her in a similar black latex suit saying that she just wanted to make him happy, this seems to be the case.

Then to feel this love, he finds a prostitute who looks like his mom and attempts to do the same action as the submissive guy from earlier, but is met with insulting and condemnation (whether or not this is part of the S&M or actual insulting is unclear). During this scene, the disgusting bug from under the toilet comes up. This is a representation of his unconscious, the id that is his repressed desire. After he attacks the prostitute, whether due to fear or because he sees the violence as intimately connected to the sex act, the room is submerged by filth from the toilet as if his id is fully taking control. This is evidenced by the bug making full communion with him.

Suffice to say, I think Jackie is the perfect “solution” for him and that the two will have many more eventful nights with each other. The ending is perfect with her poised just above him, ready to strike and him interrupting her in the same way she did earlier with the “Can we eat first?”. It’s a cementing of the couple’s “safe word” of sorts so that the delusion never threatens Reed’s life again.

5.As evidenced by both theories above, there’s a few details here and there that would make the whole movie feel more cohesive while maintaining a sense of ambiguity. For example, if Jackie gave herself a scar of sorts while piercing her nipple it might suggest she (accidentally) pricked herself and/or that she commits such acts to remember previous incidents in a more purposeful way. Likewise, knowing whether or not Reed’s mom was having sex with his Father or some other man would help explain if the lack of the second parental authority to instantiate some kind of other symbolic code is the reason why his inner structure is closer to a psychotic than a neurotic. Maybe she left his Dad for not being submissive or he never knew his dad which is why the loss of his mom to a submissive stranger of sorts was so impactful on him. Just a few more images throughout would help bring all these discussions to a more fruitful place, but as it is a lot of what I say feels like pure conjecture.