Stephen King calls Jack Ketchum “the scariest writer alive.” Jack Ketchum got together with filmmaker Lucky McKee to make “The Woman” as a sequel to Ketchum’s novels about feral cannibals living in Maine. In “The Woman”, the books’ last surviving cannibal is captured by a dysfunctional middle-class family. Sexism and patriarchy are dissected just as thoroughly as in “A Serbian Film”, but the worst of the violence is kept off-screen. The crescendo of the plot comes too easily, the ending has one twist too many, but the acting and direction make this movie worthwhile.
Meanwhile, Charlotte Gainsbourg makes me sigh. Now, what would happen if Charlotte were to go feral? I can already imagine her in a bar punching somebody upside the head. Both women have directness and grace. Both speak their own language, whether it is art or nature. Both live life on their terms (spoiler: woe betide the family man in “The Woman”). Something to meditate upon.