Woman in the end of the courtyard, explained: the new bottom of the horror of trauma

Spoilers to come for the intrigue and the end of The woman in the courtyard.

There are two reasons why Jamie Lee Curtis said “trauma” has taken off. First, because she said it funny-has the word never been pronounced “trow-ma”? And secondly, because it has captured a very real trend in contemporary horror, where the monster is a metaphor for the repressed emotions of our manager, the buried sorrow and, yes, trauma. This concept was not invented by 2018 from Blumhouse Halloweenor by other heavy goods vehicles from the 2010s such as The Babadook And Hereditary. You can find these types of metaphors in a number of previous classics: Don’t look now,, CarrieAnd Rosemary Baby Among them. But it is undeniable how firmly it is taken in mind in the last decade, to the point that horror which is really a question of trauma now looks more like the norm than with the exception.

In that spirit, you can have a good idea of ​​the place The woman in the courtyard Go well before his arrival at his destination. Blumhouse’s latest release is concentrated on Ramona, played by Danielle Deadwyler, wading her husband’s death in the death of the death of her husband, Russell Hornsby), while recovering from injuries suffered in the car accident that took her life. She is now single -parent of two children, Taylor (Peyton Jackson) and Annie (Estella Kahiha), and fighting to keep the lights on on their isolated farm. His situation seems quite dark before the arrival of the holder woman (Okwui Okpokwasili). Planted on a chair in the front courtyard and draped from head to toe in a black shroud, she claims to have been invited by Ramona. “Today is the day,” said the woman. “You called and I came.

Ramona tries to assure her children that there is nothing ordinary. Perhaps the woman has just moved away from the nearest nursing home, she offers. Her son wonders if the woman could be dead and uses the shroud to hide her hideous disfigurement. But a monster is never just A monster, and those of us who know modern horror – and with the Blumhouse brand – can quite easily jump to our own explanation. The woman must be a manifestation of Ramona sorrow: something that has happened without an invitation in the life of this family, throws a shadow on their house and refused to leave.

In fact, it is and it is not. During The woman in the courtyardIt becomes clear that what Ramona lives goes beyond normal grief (also normal sorrow can be). She has violent fantasies, including those in which she stabbed Annie with a butcher knife. She wasted time and finds herself transported at the time of the impact, the broken glass hovering in the air around her. All could Be a trauma, but Taylor reveals that his mother is on “crazy pills”, suggesting something more diagnosed. Indeed, the final act of the film has Ramona places with the woman, confirming that they were always two parts of the same everything. “I am the corners of your mind, the frightening parts,” explains the woman. It is the depression of Ramona, or, more sharp, its suicidal ideation. Every morning, Ramona prayed for the force – not so that she could put her life on the right track and take care of her children, but she can use the David pistol to commit suicide. “Today is the day”, she follows: the woman has arrived to help Ramona press the relaxation.

“It is a metaphor of sorrow” would have been predictable as a touch, but always preferable to this The woman in the courtyard Gives us in place, a deeply disturbing representation of mental illness which makes the depression of Ramona a violent monster. Deadwyler gives the kind of performance committed and lived that we expect from her, while the director Jaume Collet -Serra manages a creative camera work – all the more impressive since the film takes place largely during the day, with the woman holder seated calmly on a chair. But the real talent involved does not change the way the culminating scene landed, with Ramona and her self -shade jointly guiding the hunting rifle under her chin.

The representations of suicide are not beyond the pale horror, of course, but there is something particularly thoughtless in this execution. The film seems to savor by punishing Ramona. It is an unreliable narrator and a danger for her children and her husband – we learn that she was driving when the accident occurred – and she spoke of this monster in their life with her wish that “someone else can be strong for once”. The woman in the courtyard Dangerously gets closer to assimilating suicide with selfishness, as we see Ramona, in flashback, telling David that she always does things for others and never for herself. “We had this vision of a perfect life, and I just couldn’t live it,” she said later. It is difficult not to have the impression that the film blamed Ramona when a large part of its revelation depends on its real threat.

An ambiguous end is only the film. A story of Ramona overcoming the slash monster her suicidal ideas would have been hacky and reductive, but it would at least have shown a goal of goal. Instead, The woman in the courtyard Decides not to commit, ceasing to show Ramona to commit suicide, then to present a “happy ending” which is strongly coded as not being real.

After having sent her children and unite her forces with the woman to put an end to all of this, Ramona sees the Annie in the plush left to her. This seems to be sufficient to remove it from the edge. His children come back and suddenly, the farm fixator has been repaired. He also received a name – something David always wanted. As with a large part of the film, including Ramona’s literal journey through the glass in research where the whole text is reversed, there is a heavy surreality suspended on everything. We finish on one of Ramona’s paintings, a sign that she found her creativity, but there is a slow zoom on her signature. “Ramona” is behind. Does that mean that she kissed and accepted the darkest parts of her mind, or is it a dark revelation that she did the act? In the context of the strangely idyllic final scene, it looks much more like the latter. The mirror world is associated with the woman – this is where Ramona enters her shoes – so it goes to the reason for the reason why Ramona could find trapped after letting the woman fill her goal.

As with trauma in horror more broadly, a less than positive representation of mental illness is not new. To say that gender has contributed to stigma is something from an understatement – Watch Dr Caligari’s office,, PsychoOr essentially any film by Ari Aster and you will find an association between being mentally ill and being dangerous and homicide. Whether or not you find these offensive films, the trope is so widespread that it has become commonplace, and The woman in the courtyard There is nothing new to say that could excuse the way it traditionizes in a territory as well translated. The Babadook Covered this more than a decade ago and gave us a much more convincing monster in the process. The woman in the courtyard also recalls the just as disappointing Never let goAnother film in which a black mother who claims to protect her children at all costs turns out to be a threat to them. In Never let go And The woman in the courtyardThe racial dynamics are not unexplored, causing films that feel, at best, negligent in their representations of mental illness and black women.

It is unlikely that we will completely escape the horror of trauma. Even the horror which is not about Trauma tends to be traumatic. But The woman in the courtyard represents a new weakness, its particularly blatant laziness given the sensitivity of its subject. On paper, there is nothing here that should be untouchable: horror is a ripe genre for the envelope push, and which often includes the exploration of uncomfortable themes. Without the thought and care necessary, however, these themes land as an empty provocation, or – as is the case here – a cheap narrative shortcut. In the end, this metaphor deserves a better film. Deadwyler too. We too.