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Women
are trouble. They always have been and they always will
be. To the lovelorn man with a taste for old fashioned
romance, women are their poison, the source of
inspiration, bliss, torment, and their downfall. "Double
Indemnity," "King Kong," "Cleopatra," "MacBeth," the
list goes on, but the one true defining theme in all of
fiction is that women can make or break the man, and
Jonathan Levine's "All the Boys Love Mandy Lane" is the
truest depiction of the power of the beautiful woman and
what they can do in a world that idolizes, idealizes,
and fetishizes women. Levine's film is something of a
slow boil horror thriller, one that is based around love
for a blond beauty named Mandy Lane, and how she
inspires a stalker, male admirers, female admirers, and
a slasher lurking in the shadows. This is all set to the
tune of the real monster. Her name is Mandy Lane and in
the final scenes of Levine's cult classic, we learn that
even the dirtiest of monsters can have an angelic face
that few men can resist.
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Levine's
film builds itself up like a modern John
Hughes film, one that has a more dread
induced tone about the untouched and chasted
Mandy Lane whom the boys all lust after. And
surely enough we see her temperament during
the prologue of the film as she's mobbed by
many men during a pool party filled with
gorgeous women. What is it about Mandy Lane
that attracts the men over others? Her
purity? Her virginity? Her naivity? Surely
enough as we learn from the very first
moments, beautiful women can inspire men to
do great things and to commit acts of sheer
brutality all in their name. More so than
any god or deity. And surely enough, Mandy
Lane is the prey in a host of young
classmates, all of whom either loathe or
love her. |
She's
invited to a local classmate's country ranch where the
guys going along all takes bets to see whom can get in
her pants first while the girls all worship the ground
she walks on muttering about her in hushed tones behind
her back. Like common sense, Jonathan Levine not only
presents the audience with a second look at Mandy, but
he allows for the characters to see the omens for
themselves, all of which is dependent on symbolism that
is subtle and poetic. Notice how the group of friends
are swimming in the local lake and Mandy Lane is
undisturbed by the snake in the water that is quiet,
graceful, but utterly deadly until Garth comes along and
notices the monster in the silence and kills it dead.
Garth and Mandy have sort of a hunter and prey
relationship, one with natural roles that are never
quite made clear for the audience. Is Garth
inadvertently seeking out a lovelorn Mandy, or is Mandy
hunting Garth? And what is it that Mandy sees in Garth?
Is he another Mandy Lane, a man who is lusted after by
almost everyone but just happened to come across the
right woman determined to have him for herself? Levine
seems to point toward a frank element in their
relationship in which for once Mandy is the pursuer and
Garth is the one being pursued.
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their dialogue there's no flirting from
Garth and his caring for her is more in a
patriarchal sense than that of someone in
love with her. When she attempts to hint at
a possible rendezvous, Garth pulls back
asking if Mandy has a sister older than her.
For once Mandy isn't the one being lusted
after, and this only entices her further. By
the time we discover who is murdering the
vacationers, it comes as no surprise, but
that's the point. Emmett is the man who has
pined for Mandy Lane in silence and dignity
for the past four years and has hid in the
shadows doing literally nothing to pursue
her while other men have thrown themselves
at her. Mandy seems to understand that and
the further we delve in to Emmett's vicious
killing spree involving jamming a rifle in
to a girl's throat, slashing a character's
eyes, and mercilessly shooting down another,
we soon learn why he's doing this. |
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The
final act of the film is a shocker in the sense that
Mandy is such a cool and collected character we don't
suspect she has a hand in these murders. Prior to
watching "Mandy Lane" I had absolutely no idea what
Levine's ultimate surprise would be or that there would
be an actual surprise, but the scene of Chloe running
from Emmett as he chases her down while Mandy calls out
to her with a knife in her hand is one grand trick of
misdirection I've seen in a while. Mandy is such a calm
character she doesn't even display a hint of ferocity in
this moment where Chloe runs to her for safety only to
be viciously stabbed in the stomach by Mandy who shushes
her gently and eases her in to the ground as Chloe, one
of the few harmless people in the group, chokes on her
own blood and looks on at Mandy in utter confusion as
she and Emmett joke about the murders callously. Just
like any villains would, we soon learn that Mandy is not
above stabbing Emmett in the back once she's had her fun
with him and used him as a tool to destroy her
obstacles.
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Emmett has
fully embraced his love and affection for
Mandy, offering up a romantic double suicide
and concocting a grand scheme to be thought
of as one of the greatest serial killers of
all time which Mandy indulges him in and has
likely injected in to his head since they
met in high school. Emmett obviously doesn't
seem to trust her in spite of his
unflinching lust toward her, asking her to
take the poison before he does just so he
can be sure. We're completely aware of
Mandy's madness as soon as she laughs in his
face and reduces him to a stalk and chase
that ends in Mandy looking like the final
girl, and Emmett being brought down like a
dog anxiously begging Mandy to love him and
die with him as she laughs in his face and
moves on with her life. In the end, Jonathan
Levine's horror film is a slasher picture
through and through, but its axe murderer is
one with an angel face who gets someone else
to do the killing for her. |
Many
have seen Mandy Lane as something of a hero who
engineered the murders of a group of people providing a
constant obstacle for her purity. Perhaps she's so
committed to staying pure that she will do just about
anything to ensure it stay that way, even if it means
murdering people. Perhaps Mandy is the ultimate bid for
chastity, one who will stop at nothing until she is
ready to give up her virginity. In any sense, Mandy is
true to herself unlike the others, and she outlasts them
all in a haze of drugs and alcohol.
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By the final scenes when she's confronted
Emmett and turned tail on her deal to die a
bittersweet death and painted the
circumstances in her favor to not only deem
herself a hero, but to become a deity in
Garth's eyes once and for all after attempts
to push back from her. By the end she's not
only murdered folks she feels are worthless
but she's won the heart of the man she's
longing for. Levine re-thinks and rebuilds
the idea of the slasher once and for all by
putting Jason's mind in to the lovely Amber
Heard's body providing a mastermind behind
the maniac. By the time the movie ends,
Mandy is about as evil as Freddy Krueger and
Jason Voorhees, but the only person who will
ever know that deep down is Mandy Lane. And
that's where the genius lies. |
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She's
managed to get whatever she wanted, and she's knocked
off the competitors for her heart, and slain a bunch of
people who more than deserve to die. And she will never
be convicted of any of it. That is the true menace of an
absolute beauty. |
