WEBVTT 00:01.559 --> 00:08.705 [SPEAKER_00]: Have you ever replayed a conversation in your head over and over, trying to work out whether you were the one who got it wrong? 00:09.445 --> 00:15.550 [SPEAKER_00]: Whether you really said what you remember saying, whether the person who told you that never happened was right? 00:16.330 --> 00:21.775 [SPEAKER_00]: Today, we're talking about a film that takes that feeling and turns it into an entire structure. 00:21.795 --> 00:25.277 [SPEAKER_00]: A film where the question, can I trust my own mind? 00:25.638 --> 00:26.598 [SPEAKER_00]: Isn't a metaphor? 00:26.758 --> 00:28.180 [SPEAKER_00]: It's the whole machine. 00:29.040 --> 00:31.222 [SPEAKER_00]: Hi everyone and welcome back to Room for Us. 00:31.602 --> 00:33.243 [SPEAKER_00]: A space where queer voices thrive. 00:33.723 --> 00:39.287 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm your host P and every single week I like to sit down, get vulnerable and talk about all things queer with all of you. 00:39.827 --> 00:49.694 [SPEAKER_00]: And today we're talking about a queer psychological thriller that I cannot stop thinking about and I think it's perfectly in line with October's spooky season. 00:50.554 --> 00:51.955 [SPEAKER_00]: The film is jagged mind. 00:52.455 --> 00:56.556 [SPEAKER_00]: It came out on Hulu in 2023, and it's directed by Kelly Colley. 00:57.456 --> 00:58.777 [SPEAKER_00]: Anne written by Allison Morgan. 00:59.337 --> 01:03.978 [SPEAKER_00]: It stars Macy Richard Sellers as Billy and Shannon Woodward as Alex. 01:04.858 --> 01:13.261 [SPEAKER_00]: Just a quick note before we dive in, this is going to be a very spoiler light episode, because I genuinely want you to go and watch this film. 01:14.121 --> 01:22.608 [SPEAKER_00]: And the big part of its power is 100% not knowing what's going on, so I'm not going to be ruining any of the twists. 01:23.208 --> 01:29.393 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to talk about the premise, the themes, the filmmaking, and why I think that message really, really matters. 01:30.153 --> 01:34.018 [SPEAKER_00]: But I also do want to give a gentle content note in this episode. 01:34.058 --> 01:39.163 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to be talking about emotional abuse, manipulation, and controlling relationships today. 01:39.764 --> 01:50.716 [SPEAKER_00]: And if that topic is too heavy for you right now to listen to, I always always want you to please take care of yourself first, feel free to skip this episode or just come back to it later when you're ready. 01:51.797 --> 01:53.340 [SPEAKER_00]: So let's get into Jagged Mind. 01:54.101 --> 01:54.862 [SPEAKER_00]: We meet Billy. 01:55.683 --> 02:02.533 [SPEAKER_00]: She is living with blackouts and these gaps in her memory and strange fragmented visions. 02:02.953 --> 02:05.997 [SPEAKER_00]: They tend to kind of come at her at the most random times and 02:06.638 --> 02:17.102 [SPEAKER_00]: I will say when you're watching this at first, as an audience member, you are kind of experiencing those feelings with her because that is exactly how the film is meant to be. 02:17.522 --> 02:23.685 [SPEAKER_00]: Billy's worried that what's happening to her might be connected to her late mother, who had suffered from dementia. 02:24.365 --> 02:26.287 [SPEAKER_00]: or like early onset Alzheimer's. 02:27.328 --> 02:36.376 [SPEAKER_00]: Her friends around her are concerned and they're trying to help, but Billy just feels like she's missing a safe place to land, like she doesn't really understand what's going on with her. 02:36.956 --> 02:39.518 [SPEAKER_00]: Then, at some point in the film, we meet Alex. 02:40.159 --> 02:45.824 [SPEAKER_00]: And when you meet Alex at first, she is this more attentive and devoted person to Billy. 02:46.404 --> 02:49.566 [SPEAKER_00]: She seems like the safe harbor that Billy has been looking for. 02:50.146 --> 02:50.727 [SPEAKER_00]: She's loving. 02:50.787 --> 02:51.507 [SPEAKER_00]: She's supportive. 02:51.547 --> 02:52.748 [SPEAKER_00]: She wants to be with Billy. 02:52.808 --> 02:53.368 [SPEAKER_00]: She's there. 02:53.688 --> 02:55.509 [SPEAKER_00]: But then things start to feel off. 02:56.150 --> 02:57.871 [SPEAKER_00]: Billy's life keeps coming apart. 02:58.291 --> 02:59.492 [SPEAKER_00]: Moments seem to repeat. 03:00.032 --> 03:07.056 [SPEAKER_00]: Things shift in ways she can't explain and then she starts to suspect that something about her new relationship is connected to what's happening to her. 03:07.396 --> 03:11.460 [SPEAKER_00]: That's all you're going to get from me in terms of the premise, but notice what the set of does. 03:12.141 --> 03:20.268 [SPEAKER_00]: It gives us a protagonist who already doubts her own memory and then puts her in a relationship with someone who really benefits from that doubt. 03:20.829 --> 03:28.196 [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that is the engine of this film, but also the engine of real emotional abuse and toxic relationships. 03:28.496 --> 03:37.463 [SPEAKER_00]: Let's step out of this film description for a few minutes, and we're going to talk about the real thing, because the film is only as powerful as the reality that it's reflecting. 03:38.504 --> 03:41.986 [SPEAKER_00]: Gaslighting is a major, major theme in this film. 03:42.587 --> 03:45.269 [SPEAKER_00]: We've all heard this word thrown around a lot. 03:45.829 --> 03:52.414 [SPEAKER_00]: Gaslighting is a pattern of manipulation where someone makes you question your own perception, memory, or sanity. 03:53.175 --> 03:58.677 [SPEAKER_00]: It's not one lie, it's not one argument where two people remember something differently. 03:59.057 --> 04:06.020 [SPEAKER_00]: It's actually a pattern and the goal is to make you stop trusting yourself so that you have to rely on them for the truth. 04:06.940 --> 04:10.602 [SPEAKER_00]: What makes it so insidious is that it rarely starts dramatically. 04:11.262 --> 04:13.723 [SPEAKER_00]: The pattern of gaslighting starts very very small. 04:13.903 --> 04:17.725 [SPEAKER_00]: It could be even something simple, just by saying, you're overreacting about this. 04:17.845 --> 04:20.466 [SPEAKER_00]: I never said this, you never said that. 04:21.027 --> 04:22.307 [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, you're just too sensitive. 04:22.547 --> 04:24.068 [SPEAKER_00]: You're remembering this all wrong. 04:24.968 --> 04:35.973 [SPEAKER_00]: Each one on its own can almost sound reasonable, but when you stack them up over weeks and months and then up at points years, you've got someone who no longer trust their own gut. 04:36.254 --> 04:38.915 [SPEAKER_00]: It's a very, very scary pattern to be caught up in. 04:40.095 --> 04:43.057 [SPEAKER_00]: Then we have love bombing in the safe harbor trap. 04:43.718 --> 04:46.800 [SPEAKER_00]: So here's the part that I think jagged mind understands really well. 04:47.781 --> 04:50.963 [SPEAKER_00]: Abusive relationships don't usually open with cruelty. 04:51.443 --> 04:54.826 [SPEAKER_00]: They open with this intensity, attention, devotion. 04:55.286 --> 04:56.687 [SPEAKER_00]: I've never felt like this before. 04:56.767 --> 04:57.748 [SPEAKER_00]: I'll take care of you. 04:58.308 --> 05:05.033 [SPEAKER_00]: And if you're someone who's already feeling vulnerable, lost, or unsupported, that certain type of attention can really feel like rescue. 05:05.513 --> 05:08.115 [SPEAKER_00]: It can feel like the answer you've always been looking for. 05:08.835 --> 05:18.364 [SPEAKER_00]: So when that control starts to creep in, it's wrapped in something that feels like love that feeling of being needed, being watched over, being protected. 05:19.064 --> 05:21.887 [SPEAKER_00]: This is why the clingy label in the film is so clever. 05:22.407 --> 05:30.674 [SPEAKER_00]: In the early going, Alex's closeness could easily be read as like, I don't know, you might see that a sweet, maybe she's romantic. 05:31.435 --> 05:35.999 [SPEAKER_00]: It's only later that you start to ask, when does devotion become possession? 05:36.659 --> 05:44.542 [SPEAKER_00]: Another hallmark of coercive control is isolation, slowly cutting you off from the people who might notice what's happening. 05:45.262 --> 05:48.723 [SPEAKER_00]: Friends become too judgmental, family doesn't understand us. 05:49.224 --> 05:55.726 [SPEAKER_00]: The abuser becomes the one reliable source of support, which makes leaving feeling possible because who would you even go to? 05:56.346 --> 05:57.787 [SPEAKER_00]: And that's the cruelest part. 05:58.587 --> 06:00.007 [SPEAKER_00]: The abuse doesn't just hurt you. 06:00.287 --> 06:03.868 [SPEAKER_00]: It dismantles the very support systems you would use to get out. 06:04.388 --> 06:06.489 [SPEAKER_00]: Abuse the relationships tend to run in cycles. 06:06.769 --> 06:11.310 [SPEAKER_00]: Tension and incident, a reconciliation, a honeymoon period, and then back again. 06:11.890 --> 06:13.270 [SPEAKER_00]: The honeymoon phase is the hook. 06:13.750 --> 06:19.592 [SPEAKER_00]: It's the reason people stay because they remember the good version of the person and keep believing that version is the real one. 06:20.112 --> 06:25.553 [SPEAKER_00]: So hold on to that idea of cycle because we're going to talk about how this film makes that cycle literal. 06:25.993 --> 06:36.659 [SPEAKER_00]: So the central point of jagged mind is that Billy finds herself reliving moments and versions of the same scenes over and over and over and there's slightly different each time. 06:37.179 --> 06:38.880 [SPEAKER_00]: She's caught and a repeating structure. 06:39.220 --> 06:42.682 [SPEAKER_00]: She doesn't understand and the film puts us there right with her. 06:43.602 --> 06:52.468 [SPEAKER_00]: Like even as Crystal and I were watching it, we were almost confused as to why we kept seeing the same scene over and over again and at times. 06:53.089 --> 06:56.511 [SPEAKER_00]: They would be very similar but then you would see very very slight differences. 06:57.111 --> 07:00.454 [SPEAKER_00]: But I was really thinking that this is such a smart choice. 07:00.934 --> 07:05.697 [SPEAKER_00]: Time loop stories are everywhere but here the loop isn't a sci-fi puzzle for its own sake. 07:05.737 --> 07:09.940 [SPEAKER_00]: It's actually like this deep deep metaphor that you are experiencing yourself. 07:10.140 --> 07:30.208 [SPEAKER_00]: If you've ever been in a controlling relationship or loved someone who was, you know that sense of, we keep having the same fight or I keep forgiving the same thing or I keep scouting better in the therapy sets, the film takes on that emotional truth that feeling of being stuck on repeat while someone else controls the terms and gives it a literal shape. 07:31.168 --> 07:35.170 [SPEAKER_00]: And the repetition does something else here too, it's very, very disorienting. 07:36.090 --> 07:39.771 [SPEAKER_00]: Billy and us as an audience can never fully settle into what's real. 07:40.231 --> 07:42.952 [SPEAKER_00]: Each time the world resets, there's a little more doubt. 07:43.432 --> 07:47.454 [SPEAKER_00]: A little more, what was true, that's gaslighting, translated, and generative form. 07:47.994 --> 07:56.137 [SPEAKER_00]: The film isn't just telling us about a character who can't trust her reality, it's making us feel it, and even question the characters about who can we trust. 07:56.697 --> 08:04.921 [SPEAKER_00]: I also love that the film is at its core a story about trying to break out, not just to survive, but also trying to find a way out of this cycle. 08:05.282 --> 08:08.643 [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that is really the emotional spine of the film, and I think it's brilliant. 08:09.284 --> 08:11.945 [SPEAKER_00]: Let's dive into the craft behind this film. 08:11.985 --> 08:12.965 [SPEAKER_00]: Like how was it made? 08:13.586 --> 08:17.688 [SPEAKER_00]: So the editing is used as a psychological tool. 08:18.208 --> 08:24.531 [SPEAKER_00]: One review I read described the film's editing as playful and even misleading in a good way, and I think that's exactly right. 08:25.091 --> 08:27.392 [SPEAKER_00]: The editing in jagged mind is fragmented. 08:27.792 --> 08:34.475 [SPEAKER_00]: Images flash by quickly, recombine, and then fall apart, and the film keeps you slightly off balance on purpose. 08:35.175 --> 08:40.662 [SPEAKER_00]: In most films editing is invisible, it's there to make the story feel seamless and trustworthy. 08:41.043 --> 08:43.506 [SPEAKER_00]: But here, the editing withholds that trust. 08:43.926 --> 08:47.250 [SPEAKER_00]: It keeps pulling the rug out so that you, the viewer, never get comfortable. 08:47.911 --> 08:51.516 [SPEAKER_00]: And that's the point because our main protagonist Billy never gets that either. 08:52.056 --> 08:54.237 [SPEAKER_00]: So the form matches the content. 08:54.617 --> 09:01.138 [SPEAKER_00]: A story about a person whose sense of reality is being manipulated is told by a film that manipulates your sense of reality. 09:01.678 --> 09:05.519 [SPEAKER_00]: Just enough to make you empathize and never enough to make you walk away. 09:05.979 --> 09:11.560 [SPEAKER_00]: In a film, this destabilizing, you need something studied a hold on to, and that is the performances. 09:12.221 --> 09:18.482 [SPEAKER_00]: Macy Richardson Salars plays Billy and one critic noted that even when she's standing still, she seems to be moving. 09:18.942 --> 09:20.904 [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's a very lovely way of putting it. 09:21.244 --> 09:25.748 [SPEAKER_00]: There's a restless, wary energy to her, someone who's always checking the edges of the room. 09:26.629 --> 09:39.401 [SPEAKER_00]: And opposite her, Shannon Woodward has the genuinely tricky job of playing someone who has to be believable as a loving partner while the audience slowly starts to see completely through them. 09:39.901 --> 09:41.342 [SPEAKER_00]: There's a really delicate balance. 09:41.782 --> 09:45.985 [SPEAKER_00]: If Alex is too obviously sinister from frame one, the film definitely wouldn't work. 09:46.645 --> 09:49.727 [SPEAKER_00]: If she's too perfect, we're not going to be unsettled. 09:50.147 --> 09:55.871 [SPEAKER_00]: So I think that Shannon did such a good job of playing that manipulative character. 09:56.511 --> 10:04.276 [SPEAKER_00]: Like when you see the scenes where she acts angry or she says certain things, it's almost like unbelievable how quickly she switches 10:06.197 --> 10:09.958 [SPEAKER_00]: Now, the setting and culture is also a big theme of this film, it really matters. 10:10.578 --> 10:17.360 [SPEAKER_00]: The film was shot in Little Haiti in Miami, and director Kelly Colley has spoken about how much she loved filming there. 10:17.700 --> 10:21.241 [SPEAKER_00]: Haitian actors were cast and Haitian Creole is spoken in the film. 10:21.941 --> 10:25.282 [SPEAKER_00]: It gives the film a specific sense of place, history, and heritage. 10:25.742 --> 10:32.304 [SPEAKER_00]: And one thing I found interesting is that Colley has said that the original draft was meant to feature two white women in Manhattan. 10:32.904 --> 10:40.570 [SPEAKER_00]: But, Kali changed the concept when she pitched the project, making the main character African-American to create an interracial couple. 10:40.730 --> 10:47.875 [SPEAKER_00]: Kali also moved the setting from New York to Miami's little Haiti to incorporate that Afro-Caribbean culture and the Voodoo elements. 10:48.896 --> 10:53.480 [SPEAKER_00]: Reviewers have noted that the film touches on themes like heritage and what gets lost or taken. 10:54.260 --> 10:57.903 [SPEAKER_00]: And I'll keep that vague, but it is worth watching with that lens in mind because it 11:02.466 --> 11:04.448 [SPEAKER_00]: This is also a fun fact about jagged mind. 11:04.628 --> 11:10.793 [SPEAKER_00]: It actually grew out of a short film called First Date, which was part of a Halloween anthology series. 11:11.514 --> 11:23.123 [SPEAKER_00]: The idea of a single, fraught, first date, a moment that should be exciting and hopeful, becoming a trap you can't leave is the perfect horror premise. 11:23.724 --> 11:28.788 [SPEAKER_00]: Expanding it into a feature let the film explores what happens when that actual trap goes 11:31.870 --> 11:41.176 [SPEAKER_00]: So it's always important to note too that with this film and what critics are saying, like, not all the reviews were completely positive, not every critic loved it. 11:41.837 --> 11:49.002 [SPEAKER_00]: Some felt the film teased richer ideas than it fully developed and the genre mechanics sometimes overshadowed the emotional journey. 11:49.502 --> 11:55.549 [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that's a fair take, but even the more mixed reviews tend to praise the lead performance and the intriguing themes. 11:55.949 --> 12:01.375 [SPEAKER_00]: And for me, a film that leaves you thinking about what it didn't explore is actually still doing something right. 12:01.755 --> 12:04.078 [SPEAKER_00]: So what is jagged mind trying to say? 12:04.338 --> 12:05.239 [SPEAKER_00]: What is the heart of it? 12:06.240 --> 12:07.361 [SPEAKER_00]: I think there's a few things. 12:08.402 --> 12:12.786 [SPEAKER_00]: First, abuse and queer relationships is real and under-discussed. 12:13.326 --> 12:24.255 [SPEAKER_00]: There's a persistent myth that abuses something that really only happens in heterosexual relationships between men and women, or that queer relationships are somehow immune to those power and balances. 12:24.735 --> 12:41.893 [SPEAKER_00]: But they aren't queer people experience emotional, psychological and physical abuse too and often face extra barriers in trying to get help of fear of not being believed fear of making maybe like the community look bad or a lack of resources that recognize their experiences. 12:42.453 --> 12:52.460 [SPEAKER_00]: A film that centers a queer relationship and treats abuse seriously without turning it into this cheap, you know, like villain, lesbian trope is doing very important work. 12:52.960 --> 12:55.022 [SPEAKER_00]: Second abuse can look like love. 12:55.242 --> 12:58.364 [SPEAKER_00]: The film refuses to give us an obvious monster at the start. 12:58.845 --> 13:02.107 [SPEAKER_00]: It shows how attentiveness, devotion, and that. 13:02.687 --> 13:15.156 [SPEAKER_00]: I just want to take care of you, vibe can actually slide into control and that's a very vital thing to see because many people stay in harmful relationships precisely because they don't look like what they've been told abuse looks like. 13:15.556 --> 13:17.918 [SPEAKER_00]: It's like a very, very slow development. 13:18.719 --> 13:23.806 [SPEAKER_00]: And third, this is about the gaslighting and questioning your own mind. 13:24.667 --> 13:25.929 [SPEAKER_00]: You are not crazy. 13:26.390 --> 13:30.756 [SPEAKER_00]: When someone makes you doubt your reality, the problem isn't your mind. 13:31.297 --> 13:32.639 [SPEAKER_00]: The doubt is the tool. 13:33.500 --> 13:35.022 [SPEAKER_00]: and forth, there is a way out. 13:35.502 --> 13:49.838 [SPEAKER_00]: The film is about a fight to break free, because so many stories about abuse can sometimes leave you feeling like very, very heavy and hopeless, but this one is built around the possibility of escape even if the cycle feels extremely airtight. 13:50.378 --> 14:07.220 [SPEAKER_00]: I think this film is a very popular one for a lot of people in the queer community in terms of us getting that queer psychological thriller we've all been looking for on the writing is incredibly brilliant but what matters even more is the deep emotions it's playing into and the real things that can happen in 14:08.261 --> 14:12.267 [SPEAKER_00]: any kind of relationships like, yes, this is highlighting queer relationships. 14:13.048 --> 14:21.419 [SPEAKER_00]: And of course, we just know though, like just relationships in general, and it's so important to pay attention to these signs, because it's very easy to overlook these. 14:22.120 --> 14:25.404 [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you feel like you're constantly walking on egg shells around someone, or... 14:26.265 --> 14:32.631 [SPEAKER_00]: you apologize for things you're not sure you did, you've been pulling away from friends or family but not entirely by choice. 14:33.192 --> 14:36.355 [SPEAKER_00]: You doubt your memory because of how your partner reacts when you bring things up. 14:36.855 --> 14:38.998 [SPEAKER_00]: You feel smaller than you used to. 14:40.239 --> 14:42.841 [SPEAKER_00]: Just know all of this is not your fault. 14:42.941 --> 14:48.267 [SPEAKER_00]: It's not a sign that you're weak and these patterns are designed to be hard to see. 14:49.467 --> 14:54.569 [SPEAKER_00]: from the inside and I think that's what jagged mind does so so well. 14:54.609 --> 14:56.309 [SPEAKER_00]: Like we kind of see that through Billy. 14:57.029 --> 15:01.891 [SPEAKER_00]: She's having a hard time even recognizing these patterns and her relationship herself. 15:02.331 --> 15:06.552 [SPEAKER_00]: Like she gets confused and then things reset as if everything is okay. 15:07.012 --> 15:21.375 [SPEAKER_00]: So to wrap this all up, I think Jagged Mind is a stylish, unsettling, imperfect and genuinely thoughtful thriller that uses its structure to make you feel what it's like to lose trust in your own mind. 15:22.095 --> 15:31.856 [SPEAKER_00]: It's about toxic relationships, gaslighting, and love that can feel like control, but most importantly, the fight to break free from all of that. 15:32.536 --> 15:34.837 [SPEAKER_00]: So if you do watch it, I'd love to hear what you think. 15:35.657 --> 15:36.838 [SPEAKER_00]: What did she think of the editing? 15:36.878 --> 15:38.559 [SPEAKER_00]: Because I really, really loved it. 15:38.579 --> 15:40.880 [SPEAKER_00]: But of course, at many times, it did throw me off. 15:41.801 --> 15:44.323 [SPEAKER_00]: Did you see the signs earlier than Billy did? 15:44.903 --> 15:47.945 [SPEAKER_00]: It's so fun to also watch this with another person. 15:47.985 --> 15:49.326 [SPEAKER_00]: And I was watching this with Crystal. 15:49.546 --> 15:51.047 [SPEAKER_00]: She picked it up right away. 15:51.107 --> 15:54.229 [SPEAKER_00]: Like, she was thinking things were sketchy from the get-go. 15:54.489 --> 16:00.792 [SPEAKER_00]: and I was still trying to piece together at points like which character do we not trust, but it seemed like she knew right away, which is really cool. 16:01.293 --> 16:03.013 [SPEAKER_00]: So I'd be curious to know what you thought. 16:03.314 --> 16:14.839 [SPEAKER_00]: If you want to look into streaming, I know it's available on Hulu and then Disney plus in Canada in the US, but I know availability varies elsewhere, so just make sure you check your local platforms. 16:15.480 --> 16:17.581 [SPEAKER_00]: But let me know what you think of this film. 16:17.601 --> 16:19.642 [SPEAKER_00]: I had a fun time breaking this down. 16:20.383 --> 16:21.645 [SPEAKER_00]: And yeah, let's chat about it. 16:21.685 --> 16:25.311 [SPEAKER_00]: Feel free to DM me and we can have some good interesting conversations. 16:25.792 --> 16:31.662 [SPEAKER_00]: But with that, thank you all for listening to room for us as always, and I will see you all next week.