The Girl and the Spider

The Girl and the Spider is the WLW answer to Denis Villneuve’s 2013 film, Enemy. Both films use large amounts of metaphorical spider imagery and also, I didn’t get either film. Heck, calling The Girl and the Spider a WLW film might be overstating it. Various women in this film are probably queer, but they’re all so strange and oblique it’s hard to tell. Still, The Girl and the Spider as a piece of art had a notable effect on me as a viewer: it made me rethink my reaction to spiders in fiction as well as in real life.

The events of The Girl and the Spider focus on a woman named Lisa moving out of her apartment. She’s not going far, I’m pretty sure she’s pretty much moving across the street. But this doesn’t stop Lisa’s roommate Mara from feeling highly negative of the move. As various friends and family members arrive to help Lisa move, Mara sulks in the background.

Mara and Lisa are almost certainly a little more than roommates. But theirs is a relationship more of undertones than blatant statements. Mara tells Lisa, “fuck you.” Lisa responds, “later. I’m moving out.” Later in the film, Lisa remarks that Mara’s herpes lip sore has infected her as well. Mara tells her it’s something to remember her by. That’s the most blatant hints of lesbianism between these characters. I don’t really know how to read their relationship as something that completely lacked a romantic or sexual component. The dialogue leads me too strongly to that conclusion. But maybe that’s projection from me. Weirder things have happened. Hell, weirder things have happened within this movie than the idea of two women sharing such dialogue yet not being lovers.

This is not a film for everyone. The directing is good, the script is highly intentional but it’s also highly oblique. The Girl and the Spider is the kind of movie where someone will tell a story about PDF plans for an apartment layout that got scrambled and the character found meaning in this event. Whether the audience will allow themselves to also find meaning in a movie like this is largely up to personal preference. But if you do like it, it means you’re smart. Check out the difference in those user ratings versus critic reviews. Critics called the movie poetic and intelligent. Audiences were more likely to say it was confusing and boring.

My personal take on the film is that it’s about human connection. That’s a pretty obvious point, they more or less say that in the film. Mara tells a story about how as a child, there was a spider in her room. And one day, the spider was gone. And sometime after, the webs the spider left were gone too, leaving no trace the spider had ever been there. See? It’s like relationships. Mara seems concerned that when Lisa leaves, their connection will also vanish. Maybe not immediately, but without Lisa’s presence, the web of connection between them will fade too.

What initially confused me was using spiders as a metaphor for human connection. To me, comparing Mara’s desire to maintain a relationship with a spider felt cruel. Because spiders are scary predators! Is that what Mara is? Maybe. Or maybe the problem is my interpretation of spiders. Why does spider imagery have to be one of violence and consumption? Spiders are mostly pretty chill guys. They even eat the bugs I hate. Spiders aren’t inherently good or bad. They’re a neutral part of a functioning ecosystem. Within the film, Mara uses spiders as a form of intimacy and connection. With both Lisa and later, a potential new lover, Mara gently captures a spider and shares a moment with her partner where they gently pass it between their hands. Even this small moment made me think differently about things. If I see a spider, I just kill it on site.

I still don’t think I understood this movie. I don’t think I remotely plunged the depths of meaning that The Girl and the Spider was going for. But I also know that I keep thinking about it. The film’s oblique ambiguity is engaging, rather than frustrating. The film is written and directed with careful intent. As much as I don’t always understand that intent, The Girl and the Spider engaged me and caused me to think about deeper fictional themes than most movies, WLW or otherwise. However, it’s not a powerful enough piece of work to make me think twice about killing the spider that’s currently in my bathtub. And that absolutely reflects badly on the movie and not at all on me as a person.

Overall rating: 6.6/10

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