The Male/Female Brain at the Movies

Much has been written on the differences between how men and women perceive and interpret things. Deborah Tannan told us in her 1990 book You Just Don’t Understand Me that men and women respond to various aspects of life very differently. Men don’t like to ask, for example. Even asking for directions can challenge a man’s sense of self-sufficiency, whereas for women it’s more a practical matter. She’d rather ask than be lost. For men, asking means admitting that he is lost.

Generally, most men don’t love talking about problems, either, beyond sharing just enough information to get the problem fixed, whereas women often want some emotional support when they bring up problems. So, lots of luck, ladies, if you’re discussing that problem with the guy in your life. His brain is programmed to solve the problem, not to listen sympathetically. But hang in there, maybe you can negotiate some of both!

I just had some up-close and personal experience with the famous male-female perception schism as a result of two movies the dh and I saw recently, Fractured and Georgia Rule. They were both excellent, but I almost didn’t see Georgia Rule because of the mixed reviews, mostly bad. The ones I read called the movie dark and twisted, which I found hard to believe given the cast and the clips I’d seen. Later, I realized the reviews were written by men, and I was much confused by the dark and twisted references.

For me, the dark and twisted movie was Fractured. Brilliantly acted by Anthony Hopkins as a pathologically obsessive husband, who methodically plans and quite openly carries out the perfect murder of his wife, who’s been unfaithful to him and is about to leave him. She’s getting ready to tell him the truth when he initiates his chilling plan. Ryan Gosling is the deputy district attorney who’s onto bigger and better things at a fancy private law firm when he’s roped into the case, and can’t get out of it.

Okay, so Fractured deals with the terrifyingly close to perfect murder of an unhappy wife and the near destruction of Gosling, who tries valiantly to solve the crime. It’s riveting from beginning to end. It’s also torturous from beginning to end. I was sweating bullets, praying the good guys won. Hopkins is so diabolically convincing you’re not sure anyone could best him. Ever. And I’m not saying anyone did. Actually, that’s all I’ll say in case some of you intend to catch this mesmerizing film. But, be warned. It’s DARK AND TWISTED.

Georgia Rule is about three generations of women played by Jane Fonda, Felicity Huffman, and Lindsey Lohan, who are bitterly estranged. Huffman plays Fonda’s daughter and Lohan’s mother, and her seriously dysfunctional life becomes the lynch pin that sends daughter Lohan off to spend the summer with rigid, authoritarian grandmother, Fonda. Lohan’s bad girl character shows lots of skin, uses racy language and seduces everything in pants, including a sweet virginal young Mormon guy, who’s promised to another woman. She and Fonda are at odds from the moment she steps foot in Fonda’s domain, a bucolic small town in Idaho.

Only Huffman, when she shows up on the scene with her binge drinking, smoking and undiluted rage toward her mother, manages to outdo Lohan for bad behavior. One starts to wonder how these women went so wrong, especially since Fonda, though religiously rigid, compulsive, and showing signs of OCD, doesn’t seem all that bad. Of course, there’s a dark secret in this family that involves Huffman’s second marriage to a man who is not Lohan’s father, and in order to make my point, I have to reveal that Lohan alludes to sexual abuse. Whether or not it’s true is very much the mystery of the story, and an excellent mystery it is. Beyond that, I will only say that the ending is perfect.

As Allan and I were leaving the movie I thought about the reviews describing Georgia Rule as dark and twisted. I asked him if he agreed, and he said absolutely. He went on to emphasize that it was a much darker movie than Fractured. Darker than Fractured?! Maybe Silence of the Lambs was darker than Fractured. Maybe Nightmare on Elm Street. But Georgia Rule? I was aghast, agape and boggled.

How could this be? That’s when it hit me. Was this that perception thing? Is it possible that some (but not all, perhaps) men find it easier to watch a movie whose plot is the fiendishly clever murder of an unfaithful wife, subsequent cover-up and pathological destruction of the investigator, than one whose plot is three women coming to terms with the deep pain they’ve caused each other because of their choices, which include bad men, and what they must do to eradicate it?

Go figure. I thought Georgia Rule was heartfelt and inspiring. And I darn sure wish more reviews were written by women because I’ll bet lots of women didn’t go see the movie after reading about how dark and twisted it was.

So, how about you? Seen any good movies lately?

Suz