[This review discusses specific plot points and details, so if you don't want them spoiled, don't proceed.]
Plato once wrote (in The Phaedrus) that in life, things
are not always as they seem, and that first appearances can deceive many
people.
That’s
the carefully-applied philosophy beating at the heart of American Mary (2013), a droll,
carefully-constructed horror movie starring Katharine Isabelle and written/directed
by Jen and Sylvia Soska.
In
broad strokes, the film depicts the story of a talented, dedicated, and
financially-strapped medical student, Mary (Isabelle) who travels,
uncomfortably -- at least at first -- between the world of “reputable” surgeons
and the world of “disreputable” body modification patients.
Only
-- as Mary finds out the hard way -- those exterior descriptions are worse than
meaningless. They are actually inverted.
No
one is as Mary expects them to be, and so, after being sexually victimized by the
surgeons -- those whom society considers respectable -- she self-actualizes as “Bloody
Mary,” an outlaw surgeon extraordinaire. Mary finds solace within the body mod
community, which considers her a true artist.
After
her rape, Mary literally casts-off the garb of students and doctors, and creates
her own unique persona instead, one that allows her to take back meaningful
ownership of her whole being. She slices
and dices her way to repair the breach the doctors have caused. That her tool
is plastic surgery -- a discipline devoted to “correction” or “restoration” --
makes the film’s central conceit work even more efficiently.
Yet
-- and this is one reason why the film proves so powerful -- Mary’s fearsome
new demeanor and wardrobe also comes, finally, to isolate her from the rest of
humanity. At some point, Mary becomes so
frightening a figure that others can’t relate to her. They shun her not out of disrespect
or judgment, but out of outright fear.
Beyond
presenting a sympathetic look at the body modification community -- a stance I
haven’t seen deeply explored in other films -- American Mary thrives as
a work of art by adhering strictly to its theme that society-at-large consists
of men who are not what they seem to be.
At
least the body modification patients attempt to be true to who they really are
inside. The same cannot be said for the surgeons who hide behind the sheen of
respectability and professional accomplishment, but are, in fact, members in a
grotesque and privileged “boys only” club.
It
has been reported widely that American Mary serves as a metaphor of
sorts for the Soskas’ experience in Hollywood dealing with male movie executives. Apparently, this demographic wasn’t as trustworthy
or professional as they ought to have been, either. The filmmakers thus sought
refuge in horror film circles, and the corollary for that community, of course,
is the body mod community in the film.
Both demographics are viewed, by outsiders, as being socially
unacceptable or even freakish. Yet these
communities (in film and in life, respectively) often prove accepting and
loving instead
American
Mary is
sharp, smart, and well-drawn, and every scene pulsates with a sense not only of
life’s inequities, but how they can sometimes galvanize us to be better and
stronger. Remarkably, the film-- often riding
on a tail-wind of justified rage – also manages to suggest, with moral
conviction, that sometimes our drive never to again be a victim can, finally, isolate
us from others.
“I’m
changing specialties.”
Overwhelmed by
bills, med-student Mary (Katharine Isabelle), applies for a job at a strip
club. The owner, Billy (Antonio Cupo), however, sees her resume -- which lists her
schooling -- and retains her services as a doctor to heal a client who has been
beaten. Mary is paid five thousand dollars for her work.
A dancer at
Billy’s bar, Beatrice (Tristan Risk) -- who has undergone fourteen surgeries so
as to look like Betty Boop -- soon asks Mary to perform plastic surgery on a
friend, Ruby (Paula Lindberg). Ruby wishes
to have her nipples and labia excised so she more closely resembles a sexless
doll. Mary performs the surgery, and it goes well. So well, that Ruby advertises it, and Mary
gains a name in the body-mod community.
Meanwhile, Dr.
Alan Grant (David Lovgren), Mary’s professor, invites Mary to a party just for
surgeons. Once there, Grant’s colleague
drugs Mary, and Grant rapes her.
When Mary wakes
up, she undertakes revenge, performing surgery on Grant that involves
amputation, genital modification, teeth filing, implants, and amputation.
Soon, Mary
becomes a much-sought after surgeon in the body-mod community, even as police
begin to search for the missing Dr. Alan Grant.
At the same
time, Ruby’s husband surfaces, upset at the changes she has made to her body,
and seeks vengeance.
“You’re
going to be a great slasher.”
American
Mary is all
about the grievous distance between appearance and reality, and every character
in the film can be interpreted in regards to that gap, to one extent or
another.
Dr.
Alan Grant, and Dr. Walsh, for example, both assume that they have power over
Mary. They hold positions of power both in academia (as professors) and within
the medical discipline she has chosen: surgery.
They
believe that this position of power and respect entitles them to do with as
Mary they please, without asking for consent.
They assume her consent, in
short, because they assume their control over her. They treat her like a
prostitute, drugging and raping her. They
expect to pay no price for their crime.
By
all standards, these men should be pillars of the community and paragons of
virtue. They have attained the highest plateaus in their discipline, and yet
they have attained all this power not to help others, but to wield it over
those who possess less power.
This
perspective is revealed, though inadvertently, through Dr. Walsh’s comment to
Mary that she will be a “great slasher.”
This
choice of words is a window into his soul.
It reveals how he sees his own work. He is not a healer, nor an artist…but
rather…a ripper. He gets off on cutting into human flesh, not repairing it.
Grant
is very much the same way. He sees something he wants in Mary, and he rips it
away from her without thought to her wants.
By
contrast, the body modification patients in the film are not in positions of authority.
To outward appearances, they are, perhaps, freaks.
Beatrice
has reshaped her face and body to resemble Betty Boop.
Another
body mod patient, Ruby, seeks to de-sexualize herself, to surgically make
herself resemble a doll. Specifically, she wants her nipples removed, and her labia
minimized to mimic a Barbie’s appearance.
These
decisions may not be considered mainstream, but there are at least two points
worth considering, in terms of the film’s artistic argument.
The
first is that Beatrice and Ruby seek opposite poles, but they are on the same
continuum.
Beatrice
seeks to become ultra-sexual through the ideal of Betty Boop, and Ruby seeks to
become a-sexual, through the removal of parts that tag her as female. Both these changes involve sex, however,
either heightening sex appeal or lessening it.
Regardless
of the direction -- Betty Boop or Barbie – the surgeries represent the women
asserting control over their own sexual identities.
The
second point is that Beatrice and Ruby do not seem under duress when they make
these surgical alterations. Rather, they both verbally define the changes as “aligning”
with the qualities they already feel inside.
They feel that these outward changes are self-actualizing, bringing into alignment their inner and outer
selves.
So,
where men like Grant and Walsh prey on women by fostering the distance between
their appearance (respected members of the community) and their actions (as
rapists), the women in the film seek to minimize
that same distance.
Importantly,
the surgery Mary performs on Grant minimizes that distance. She gives him a
forked tongue, like a devil, and cuts off his arms so he can never hold down
another woman again.
Importantly,
Ruby diagrams the nature of her modifications on Grant and states that she has “fourteen
hours of surgery ahead” of her. I
believe this number is not coincidental, as Beatrice has already noted that she
had “fourteen” particular body mod surgeries.
Thus the film is making a specific parallel between these the characters’
surgeries…both are self-actualizing, if not voluntary, at least in Grant’s
case.
I
have read some material online that indicates the film is “anti-man” for its
depiction of Grant and Walsh, but it isn’t. There are actually at least three
likable men in the film, a police detective, a bodyguard, and Billy, the man
who owns a “gentleman’s club.”
Billy
is an interesting case, and another example of appearances not aligning
directly with character. He dresses like
Tyler Durden from Fight Club (1999), and will beat a man to a pulp if he feels it
necessary, and yet he is, actually, “the gentleman” of the gentleman’s
club. He treats Mary with respect and
love, and they forge a friendship that goes beyond mere physical
attraction.
A
big part of Billy feels he will never be worthy of Mary, a woman of
extraordinary power, and so he resorts to seeking comfort (blow jobs) from
other women…all while thinking of her.
But he is not like Grant or Walsh, willing to impose his desire upon
Mary, whose consent is not known.
Again,
you don’t expect a guy who owns a strip club to be a sensitive, caring guy, but
that’s precisely who Billy is. Society wants to tell us he should be a thug --
or an exploiter -- because of his profession and place of business. But American
Mary’s lesson is the same as Plato’s. You can’t judge a person based on
society’s definition of them.
On
screen, American Mary belongs to Katharine Isabelle, a talent who
delivers an intense, accomplished, career-making performance. I was deeply afraid -- after seeing the
posters -- that the intent of the filmmakers was to make a campy horror movie
headlining a sex-kitten slasher, thus reinforcing all the worst qualities of
the horror film genre. Under the guise
of being “feminist” American Mary, I feared, would only wallow in male fantasies
about hot women in leather fetish garb and high stiletto heels.
Thankfully,
my fear was unfounded. I too had judged
by an appearance, not by substance. Indeed, the film is consistent in terms of
its rhetoric, and Isabelle brings life to Mary in a way that is layered,
memorable, and ultimately heart-breaking.
We see her make the transition from struggling student, to rape victim,
to “Bloody Mary” surgeon, and Isabelle is convincing in all those shifts.
But
importantly, the Soska sisters and Isabelle work within a moral framework or
code. One can debate the “justice” of
Mary’s actions against Grant, her rapist.
Certainly, she is working outside the frame work of the law. But it is indisputable that Mary’s murder of
a security guard is unnecessary and wrong.
He is an innocent, and in killing him, Mary has crossed some of the
distance to becoming like the male surgeon “slashers” she derides.
After
committing this act, Mary becomes increasingly disconnected from her emotions
because the persona she has erected is artist, not murderer.
Similarly,
she chooses not to kill the police detective after he reminds her that she has
been wronged. Again, there’s a very
strong sense that Mary is attempting to stitch together her own sense of useful
morality, and is not always successful in doing so.
American
Mary’s best
moment, however, might involve its structural resolution. All along, the movie focuses on Mary, and her
pendulum swing from innocent to actualized, but then it delivers a gut-punch of
a denouement.
In
the end, patriarchal society wins, and Mary loses, a victim of another man who
wishes to control female sexuality.
We
had been lulled into believing that it was Mary’s journey that matters, but the
film’s finale suggests that in modern America (hence the title), the house
always wins. The society of “reputable”-seeming
but actually disreputable men always wins.
American
Mary very
loosely fits into the “rape and revenge” horror movie genre, not unlike I
Spit on Your Grave (1978).
In
both films, the act of artistic creation is the very thing that helps to
restore the victimized female to a position of strength. In I Spit on Your Grave, rape victim Jennifer
(Camille Keaton) begins putting the pieces of her novel back together again,
and the healing process starts.
In
American
Mary, Mary becomes the doctor she trained to be, and creates “art” out
of the body mod clients who seek to re-shape their lives to align more closely
with their ethos.
This
is an empowering mode of operation, and my biggest criticism about I
Spit on Your Grave was simply that we didn’t have the chance to
encounter Jennifer after her violent retribution and find out how she felt
about it.
Who
was she when the violence was done?
To
my delight, American Mary answers that question and reveals much about Mary
after she has executed her vengeance against Dr. Grant. We see her struggle
with her own actions before the violent finale, and make choices that are
moral, such as sparing the detective. She becomes a tragic figure because we want
her to have a happy ending. We want her to leave town with Billy, and also
leave her violent “practice” behind.
Indeed,
there’s a case to be made here that Mary learned some of the wrong lessons from
the men who wronged her. They saw “great potential” in her, and told her
that “no one is going to hold your hand
through life.”
What
they didn’t tell her -- and which Mary was only starting to understand before
her murder -- is that life is better when you do have someone to hold your
hand. Being strong isn’t about hurting
others, but about choosing to connect with someone, perhaps someone like Billy.
And
as for potential, the Soskas and Isabelle have fully realized it themselves here, with
the stellar, explosive American Mary.
