You are lonely. You learn about life from literary and film characters. You notice someone. You expect the world from her. You don’t pursue so much as follow her. You steal glances. You study her activity. You are convinced that she needs you. You time your walks past her window. You “accidentally” meet her when she is in distress. You win her over. You say things you know that she will like. You take selfies together.
The classic movie meet-cute is a sequence of invisible violations. One can fall for the purity of a place or time, but deceit is hardwired into the politics of falling for a person. Modern love, in fact, is based on the illusion of accessibility.
Twisted testament
The 10-episode series, You , currently streaming on Netflix, is a twisted testament to this simple fact. The not-so-average Joe (Penn Badgley), a bookstore owner and literary addict, notices Beth (Elizabeth Lail), a writing student. Reader expects the world from Writer. He secretly “follows” her, both online and in person. He steals her phone.
He studies her cloud activity. He is convinced Beth needs him. He times his strolls past her apartment. He “accidentally” saves her life when she hits rock bottom. He wins her over. He says things he knows she will like. She hashtags their selfies on Instagram.
New age intimacy is a slave to technology – a device that dilutes the innate personality of attachment. It’s only the degree of posturing that differs. Texting isn’t the same as reacting in real time; tweeting is the act of thinking for effect. Liking and following have become digital functions that precede meeting; they trivialise the concepts of consent and obsession. Which perhaps explains why today’s “stalker movie” doesn’t feel as novel, as startling, anymore. It remains disturbing, mostly because such manipulation is not just feasible but uncomfortably relatable. Organic, almost. More often than not, it’s the urban male viewer – social media currency is the ultimate refuge of urban isolation – that feels represented, thrilled even, by characters like Joe. We quietly identify with stories that amplify our insecurities and flaws through genre trickery.
Morality versus deceit
I remember similarly empathising with the hero of Morten Tyldum’s dreamy space romance, Passengers . When a hibernation-pod malfunction awakens him 90 years too early on a colonist sleeper ship, Jim Preston manually wakes up a girl, Aurora Lane (writer, again), against her knowledge, so that he isn’t sentenced to a lifetime of loneliness. He is conflicted about the morality of his decision, but “chooses” her company after spending months staring at her face and scanning her biodata – a goofy allegory for the tinder-age generation. They are happy together, until Aurora discovers that their identity is built upon a foundation of lies.
The point being: I found myself rooting for Jim, if only for his audacity to write his own beginning.
There’s a Jim in all of us, afraid to be recognised for what these instincts might say about the ethically compromised psychology of our affections. Such films merely elevate the figurative connotations of desire – one that tends to trouble viewers for how real, and not offensive, it feels. Soulmates don’t always bump into each other; sometimes they must find one another, like passengers hoping to force the lazy hand of fate.
Joe, too, customises his destiny by designing circumstances that enable the blossoming of Beth’s feelings. He is positioned as a creeper who murders anyone that distracts Beth, but You , just like Passengers did with science-fiction, uses the serial-killer genre as a narrative window for us to observe the gender dynamics and emotional labyrinths of modern companionship. Irrespective of the “psychopath” template, they become just another couple uneasy with the permanence of big city togetherness. He has trust issues and she, hides debilitating daddy issues deep inside.
Stalker tales
The filmmakers aren’t normalising a dangerous culture; they are updating an existing one. These stalker tales transcend the gimmick of black-or-white world-building; there is an everyman texture, a greyness, to them. To an extent where it’s hard to tell the perpetrator from the victim. Beth is the prototype of existential millennialism. Despite being in the dark about Joe’s dark side, she cheats on Joe, they break-up twice, she pushes him away and flakes on him repeatedly. All this, without even knowing his secret. You soon forget how they met. All you see is this: Here is a boy who would (literally) kill for a girl, and yet the struggle is real.
And then it finally dawns upon you. You don’t rise, you fall for someone. Dishonestly is the cornerstone of the chase. “True love” is not just a mythical construct, but an inherently paradoxical term: Truth is actually incompatible with love. Contrivance defines its core. Head and heels, after all, aren’t built to be near one another.
