The Perfection

The Perfection is a movie that enjoys a plot twist and a surprise. As such, if this is a movie that might interest you, I suggest you not read the bulk of this review. I will be discussing these plot twists and revelations in depth. The last paragraph will be safe to read but the body of this review is going to dive deep into The Perfection’s surprises and revelations. Also, there’s some pretty extended thoughts on the use of rape as a horror device in films. Proceed with caution.

The Perfection stars Allison Williams as Charlotte. Charlotte was a highly regarded cellist who gave up her career to care for her ailing mother. Upon her mother’s death, Charlotte seeks out her former tutors. After receiving an invitation to an event in China, Charlotte meets the new star student, Lizzie, played by Logan Browning. Charlotte and Lizzie immediately bond. After spending the night together, Lizzie invites Charlotte to tour China with her. Then things get really gross and the plot twists star rolling in.

In some ways, The Perfection shoots its horror load too early. The first time this movie delves into horror is by far the grossest and most effective. While on a bus through China, Lizzie gets very sick. There’s a great deal of vomit and also bugs and some diarrhea for good measure. It’s deeply gross and I did not enjoy watching it. But, The Perfection is a horror movie so I’m going to applaud this scene. I don’t much care for reviews of horror movies where the reviewer lists how disturbing and horrific the film is as a negative. As I see it, that’s kind of a horror movie’s job. Certainly this scene is effective. I felt exceedingly anxious and unsettled during it which is what the movie was going for. It’s not enjoyable to sit through but again, that’s what it’s going for.

Nothing in the rest of the movie matches the level of grossness and horror in the first act. And frankly, I’m disappointed. That initial scene showed a lot of creativity and gave me high hopes for where this movie was going to go. Unfortunately, where it went really pissed me off.

In the second act of the movie we learn that the prestigious school that Lizzie and Charlotte both trained at uses extreme methods to produce star musicians. In a flashback, we see a teenage Charlotte getting threatened by the head teacher, Anton. Anton threatens her that if she does not achieve “the perfection” and play her piece perfectly, she will be punished. During this scene my mind was racing with what sort of creative and fucked up punishments would await Charlotte. After The Perfection’s initial horror scene I was sure whatever this movie was going to feature as a punishment would be a particularly creative and innovative style of fucked up.

I was wrong. The punishment for not achieving “the perfection” is rape. After this movie showed its ability to do some shocking and unpredictable types of horror, the revelation being something as common and crass as sexual abuse irritated me for a lot of reasons. It also got me thinking about how rape is used in horror movies in general and why it should probably be used less.

I think of horror movies are a perverse style of escapism. Generally, things that occur in horror movies aren’t likely or possible in the real world. It’s unlikely that anyone will have an alien burst out of their chest or get drugged up and cut off their own arm. Even murder is a statistically rare occurrence. Rape, by contrast is an upsettingly common occurrence at least for its female audience. Using rape as a tool for plot and horror robs a movie of its escapist value. It just reminds women once again of how dangerous it is to be a woman. Besides, no movie is ever going to make me as afraid of rape as the simple act of walking home alone at night and have a man call out at me. I don’t know if it’s ignorance, arrogance or both that make movies think otherwise.

Within movies themselves, rape is too frequently used as a cheap shortcut to horror. The Perfection lets itself down by resorting to something so common. After The Perfection showed me that it did have some creative and elaborate ways to disturb its audience, reverting to such a tired trope was disappointing. It actually does the movie a disservice. The Perfection doesn’t actually show any rape onscreen. It’s only implied and discussed. It seems to understand that showing rape onscreen is in bad taste. Yet it couldn’t make the jump to understand that using rape at all is also probably in bad taste. I appreciate not seeing rape onscreen but that also means that the movie is down a horror scene. Had this movie chosen to do some sort of non-sexual abuse, I expect we would’ve seen that onscreen and The Perfection could boast one more fucked up horror scene.

There is some pretty fucked-up irony as well that The Perfection, a movie about a powerful man who sexually assaults young, female artists whose career he holds in his hands was released by Miramax, the company formerly owned by Harvey Weinstein. I desperately hope this wasn’t an intentional piece of commentary. As a movie, The Perfection isn’t smart enough to make commentary on anything beyond, “hey wouldn’t it suck if you threw up and there were bugs in it?” The Perfection does try and preach a message of empowerment with Lizzie and Charlotte eventually taking down their abuser but you know what would be more empowering? Seeing a horror movie with female leads where the horror they experience is non-sexual proving that movies and people in general are capable of seeing women as more than just sexual entities.

The Perfection features some very extreme horror scenes, good pacing and excellent performances, especially from Logan Browning. It even allows its WLW leads to have as close to a happy ending this movie could realistically provide. If it wasn’t for the use of rape as a plot device, I would unabashedly recommend this movie. Unfortunately, the movie does have rape as a plot device and that does such a disservice to the film overall. Still, if you’re a fan of particularly extreme horror movies and don’t mind seeing vomit, bugs and implications of child rape, The Perfection is an effective horror movie. It just would’ve been more effective if they’d chosen a more creative horror device than rape.

Overall rating: 6.0/10

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