Horse Girl, A Review

Content warning notice for suicide and spoilers for the film.


Horse Girl, what do I say about Horse Girl? The R Rating scared me so much. But honestly, I say it was alright. I knew from the get go it couldn’t hold up to the sheer feral energy of the trailer, let alone the feral energy of the title. The beginning is a little weak. Details about the main character’s life are a little vague or poorly explained. Still we get a good sense of the characters, the nerdy and shy main, her cooler but nice roommate, the kind of douchebag roommates bf, the also nerdy bf’s roommate, the motherly coworker. The Netflix Staples*. Sara’s a nerd whose obsession with a paranormal TV show (starring Matthew Gray Gubler, my dude) and crafts are a coping mechanism she develops after her mother’s tragic suicide. She’s just trying find herself and love at the same time.After the set up, the movie quickly shifts to a psychological horror where Sara has to figure out if the bizarre events happening are real or in her head. Sara has visions while she sleeps, she sleepwalks, and she keeps losing time. And none of it has anything to do with horses.

The movie picks up a lot in the second half. It might have been a little bit of the time sunk cost but I was getting into it. The film maintains the level of tension of suspense throughout the rising action and Alison Brie is a talented enough actress to manage Sara’s increasing strangeness without alienating the audience. While there were no real standout side characters the film is ultimately Sara’s story, and it is a compelling story. We follow Sara through the conspiracy theories and her devolving mental state. The plot threads culminate into a believable story. It’s an intriguing conspiracy theory that lost me at some points but carried me to the end. And in the end in it turns out the conspiracy really was real. Aliens have been abducting Sara and they carry her away one last time. But still nothing to do with horses.

There is a horse in the movie and a subplot related to the horse. Sara used to own a horse named Willow and has a best friend called Heather who she used to ride horses with. Heather suffers a traumatic accident in their youth while riding that leaves her brain damaged. Losing her horse may also be vaguely connected to her mother to committed suicide not too sure. Sara clearly has a deep emotional connection to her horse, she even brings Willow with her when she allows the aliens to abduct her again at the end of the film. But really the horse is just extra stuff in the film. We don’t even get an explanation for why she sold Willow or how long it’s been since she owned Willow. The horse in Horse Girl is just an extra thing that takes space away from what could have been used for story telling elsewhere.

*this movie isn’t a Netflix original; Netflix bought the distribution rights. Still it seems like Netflix has a type.

Parasite vs. Joker

It’s coming this Sunday the biggest matchup of the past year, 2019 or 2020, some period of time this is what it’s building to, the showdown, the head to head, the fight of the the century the- where was I going with this again?
Oh yes: Parasite vs. Joker. Both are films marketed about being anticapitalist parables dealing with inherent violence our current system inflicts upon the lower class. Exactly my kind of movie. Both films are frontrunners at this Sunday’s Oscars and they are competing in most of the categories. Parasite has 6 nominations (and was disgracefully not nominated in any of the acting categories while Joker has 11 nominations. Both films are also up against each other in the big one: Best Picture.

Or that’s what I was going to start with but then I thought three blogs in three days was a bit much, let me see how the Oscars will play out. 1917 would probably win anyway. Boy am I glad I waited!

I screamed, I almost cried, I’m still riding this high all these days after.


Still I want to ask the question: are these two films really doing the same thing? While both films involve elements of class warfare I think that Parasite has a more effective way of interrogating the structures that make up the world that the characters live in. Joker had some good moments for me but fell flat because I ultimately couldn’t feel the film pushing towards anything. What Arthur Fleck was fighting against never felt clear, and I never felt like he was fighting for something only against. With the Kims I was on their side from the beginning and I never turned against it, no matter what they did until the bitter end*.


I could do a whole breakdown looking at one film vs. the other but the core of why I think Parasite is a better and more effective movie than Joker comes down to how the different directors frame their narratives. Bong Joon Ho focuses on families and communities while Joker only really ever focuses on the individual.


Spoilers from here on out folks.



In Parasite we follow three families, the Kims, the Parks, and the housekeeper and her husband. All of them are tightly night and invested in the success of their family above all others. They’re not essentially cruel or harmful, there is not just room for them to care about the impact of their actions beyond their immediate family. The system they live in is not set up for them to care about other people.

The Kims systematically remove every other working member of the household. The working class fights amongst themselves while the upper class, the Parks, remain intact and blissfully oblivious of the power struggle going on within their home as long as their lifestyle is maintained. Family trumps class solidarity in the film. The Kim’s come head to head with Moon gwang and her husband during the films dramatic twist that destroys both families. Ki-taek, the Kim patriarch, kills the father of the Park family. The dramatic violence ends but not much changes. A new family moves into the Park home and Ki-taek takes the place of Moon Gwang’s husband living under the house and off the scraps of the rich family above him.



Throughout the events of the film and the Kim’s soaring flight upwards and their dramatic descent downwards my loyalty to them never wavered. I can absolve them of the bad things they did but they didn’t do it for just themselves, and they didn’t do it alone. Bong Joon Ho’s characters have a sharpness of purpose and a deliberateness to their actions. Their drive is simple, to help themselves and the people they care about. That drive is their salvation and their destruction. You cannot advance without throwing someone else out, you cannot protect without someone else’s destruction.



Arthur Fleck exists in isolation. Phillip’s Gotham is a city in decline where everything is bad for everyone. The story we follow is of one man who’s neglect by society make him more and more disillusioned with the world around him. Arthur is a working class white man. He suffers from a mental disability and his mother is chronically ill. We do get to see how the city’s decline affects other people in Gotham. We get glimpses of them, single black mothers, black social security workers, harassed young female professionals, gangs of disillusioned kids. We never see what they are or what they want. They are props to show how bad life in the city is or to prop up Arthur’s own feeling of abandonment and disillusionment. Arthur’s villains are as one dimensional as his allies. I can’t hate Thomas Wayne and the capitalist oligarchy he represents because I don’t know him. All I know is that he has been personally disrespectful to Arthur. The same with all of Arthur’s enemies. By the end of the film Arthur’s main enemies are hospitalised or dead, and he is somehow the leader of a massive protest movement. But Arthur stands for nothing. Other than personal offense or neglect there is no reason for Fleck’s hatred or for the wider movement. I don’t believe that the film needed a wider message. Joaquin Phoenix does a phenomenal job of portraying a man who’s mental stability is in serious decline and is socially isolated from the rest of the world. That performance undermines the big movement Joker inspires at the end. The lonely misanthrope cannot be the leader of large movement and his anger is too unfocused to let us know what we are fighting against except our personal dislikes. And if that’s the case there isn’t anything separating Arthur from the rich and famous he hates except money.



Bong Joon Ho and Todd Phillips have statements in their work that almost answer each other.

Arthur states that “I used to think my life was a tragedy, now I realise it’s a comedy.”


Bong, in his director’s statement says, “ Parasite is a tragedy without villains and a comedy without clowns”

Philips’ is still working within the conventions of a system while Bong is working without them. Phillips creates a false send of agency in his system by making his protagonist the star of the story. No matter what kind of story its focus is Arthur. Bong’s families are all equally without power in the world of Parasite, being propelled upward to others detriment and downward to others benefit. The system is the most powerful and we are all subject to it. Parasite’s message is more powerful because of its focus, the film’s message cuts like a knife in your heart then sends you tumbling down deep into its depths.


So that’s why, at least for me, Parasite is a better, more impactful film than Joker. I feel the connections of family that inspire aspirations of greatness, even as the system keeps us down.


*Bong Joon Ho has a real talent for making films about people doing horrible things but they are still likable.