[Editorials] A Look at The Woman (2011) 10 Years Later <Throwback Fridays>

10 years ago we were introduced to the Cleek family, a seemingly normal, all-American family comprising of father Chris (Sean Bridgers), mother Belle (Angela Bettis), daughters Peggy (Lauren Ashley Carter) and Darlin’ (Shyla Molhusen), and son Brian (Zach Rand). However, all is not as it seems beneath the surface of the Cleek family, and the cracks start to appear almost instantly when we see Chris interact with those around him. 

Alongside the Cleek family, The Woman (2011) is also the story of a feral woman (Pollyanna McIntosh), who first graced our screens in Offspring (2009). Chris and the Woman meet each other one day when Chris is on a hunting trip. While resting by the riverbank, Chris catches the Woman washing in the water and decides to spy on her half-naked form using the scope on his gun. 

The scene is set more like a geeky boy in a teen movie first seeing the most beautiful girl in school than that of a total creep perving on an unaware woman as she bathes. This is because the scene is set from Chris’ point of view rather than the way the audience is viewing the scene. The soundtrack is a jaunty rock song, and there are slow-motion, lingering shots of the Woman as she tries to get clean, but it’s very clear that Chris is the one being a voyeur here, not the audience. Chris sees this encounter as thrilling and immediately begins to think about how he can use this situation to his advantage. He covets her and he wants to claim her, but rather than a traditional love story, Chris knows he will have to steal her away to get what he desires. Rather than being rash and acting on his perverse feelings for the Woman straight away, Chris goes home and thinks about what’s to be done. 

After roping his family into clearing the outdoor basement and kidnapping the Woman from her cave, Chris brings her home and introduces her to the family. The very fact that Chris doesn’t try to hide the Woman from his wife and children shows how much control he has over his family. Initially, he never raises his voice or acts violently towards his family, and yet they do what he asks pretty much without question, even though it’s very obviously wrong on several levels. 

The women in the family, Peggy and Belle, are stunned at what Chris is asking them to do but are too afraid to question him or go against his wishes. After all, it’s Peggy and Belle who receive the full brunt of Chris’ spite and hate. Brian, on the other hand, is excited about the prospect of having access to a bound woman, and this is because rather than punishing Brian the way he does Peggy and Belle, Chris has been pushing his toxic masculinity onto Brian from a young age. Brian embraces it, asking what they’re going to do to the Woman, and if they really get to keep her. The possibilities she unfolds for him are like a new toy, rather than a living person.

Chris very quickly makes the Woman part of the family’s chores, saying caring for her will be much like looking after the vicious dogs they keep locked in the barn. The family show no love for the dogs, which makes you question why they even own them in the first place. The only reason they are mentioned so much is that Peggy and Brian are constantly arguing over who’s turn it is to feed them, but they are not beloved family pets. Soon the Woman joins them, locked up at the end of the property, only visited by Chris so that he can ‘help her’ become a more civilized member of society.

An incredibly interesting character in The Woman is Belle, the matriarch of the Cleek family who knows the full extent of her husband’s problems and yet chooses to mostly ignore them. When she tries to raise her worries with Chris, he causally slaps her with one hand as he continues to brush his teeth with the other, showing how little he cares for her opinion, and knowing he only has to exert the smallest amount of force to knock her back into line. 

We find out later that Peggy is hiding a pregnancy which is the result of abuse at the hands of Chris who is undoubtedly the father. We know Belle is aware of the abuse, though perhaps not the pregnancy itself, from the protective way she stands in the doorway and watches Chris as he talks to Peggy in bed. Despite this, she does nothing to actually stop the abuse, or to make her daughter feel safe and loved. Instead, Peggy feels alone, knowing there is no one she can talk to about her problems. As a result, Peggy is overly-protective of Darlin’, watching over her while she sleeps, hoping she can prevent the abuse from carrying on through the generations of the Cleek family. She has been unable to stop what has happened to her, in large part due to her mother’s unwillingness to step into the situation but continues to remain focused on protecting Darlin’. 

Belle has plenty of chances to stop the abuse the Woman is suffering, and yet the hold Chris has over her is so strong that she is indifferent at best, never making a move to help the Woman. In a scene where Chris washes the Woman, there’s an unspoken conversation between the Woman and Belle, as Belle approaches her husband with a plank of wood. The Woman pleads with her eyes for Belle to hit Chris and free her, and while it seems she is considering it, she makes her true allegiance clear by pointing out to Chris that the Woman has almost broken free from her restraints on one side. 

Again, it’s time for Peggy to step up and do what her mother cannot, by standing up to her father when he decides to wash the Woman using a pressure washer. Peggy screams at her father, before eventually turning the machine off herself. These acts may seem small, and not enough in the grand scheme of things, but Peggy is learning that her father is not always right and he doesn’t always know what’s best. She’s finally learning to stand up for herself. 

The final straw for Belle occurs as a result of what Chris and Brian decide to do next. Late one night, Chris sneaks out of bed, leaving an awake Belle aware of his decision as he creeps out to the basement. He lights a candle and then proceeds to sexually assault the Woman, as Brian watches from a peephole he drilled in the door. Again, the soundtrack and the candle are slightly jarring, seeming more like an awkward romantic encounter in a teen movie than a rape scene. But again, we’re viewing the scene through Chris’ eyes, rather than the reality of what is actually going on, because Chris is so intent on framing his actions in a positive way. 

We flash to Peggy, asleep in her bed, but with a similar candle burning beside her. We’re then shown Belle, crying in the dark, the candle on her beside unlit. The candles seem to represent the women that Chris shows an active interest in, and Belle is no longer one of them. It pains her to know that he views the Woman in a sexual way, even if it is non-consensual. 

After viewing his father using the Woman to carry out his fantasies, Brian decides to do the same, visiting the Woman with a pair of pliers the next day when he thinks he’s home alone. Brian takes everything he has learned from his father - the sexual assault, the violence, the complete disregard for the Woman’s life - and puts it into practice himself. He’s intent on impressing his father with his basketball skills and rather than coming up short he is keen to show this is something he can succeed at in order to gain his father’s approval. However, Peggy catches him and reports the incident to her mother. 

The discussion around the kitchen table about Brian’s behaviour is finally what breaks the Cleek family apart. While Peggy and Belle are openly horrified at what Brian has done, Chris claims that no-one has been hurt and Brian is simply an adolescent following through on his urges. “Boys will be boys,” Chris claims before Belle finally tells him that she’s leaving him. Her plan to leave with the girls and discard Brian with Chris shows that she recognizes Brian is past saving. The toxic masculinity that Chris has been drilling into him since he was a child is deep-rooted, and after finally getting the courage to leave Chris, it’s doubtful Belle would be able to find the strength to try and return Brian to a place of normality. To leave him behind and erase any traces of Chris’ hatred and influence seems like the safer option for the Cleek women. 

Chris feels he’s starting to lose his control over the family at this point. Belle is leaving him, and while Brian is learning his father’s ways, he’s not learning the control or the ability to hide in plain sight which his father has mastered, which may end up causing problems for him down the line. So for Chris, it’s a terrible time for Peggy’s teacher, Ms Raton (Carlee Baker) to turn up and break the news of Peggy’s suspected pregnancy to the family. 

Proving too much for Chris to take, Chris and Brian tie Ms Raton up and drag her out to the dog pen in the barn. It seems that the dogs may be serving another purpose after all, and hiding yet another Cleek family secret when a third daughter emerges from the dog house. Socket Cleek (Alexa Marcigliano) has no eyes and has adapted to living with the violent dogs. It seems that rather than dealing with a child with a challenging condition and offering real help, Chris has decided to hide her, much like the Woman. 

Peggy is now at breaking point. The only other person who has any idea of what is going on in her house is about to be fed to the dogs and her overly-violent sister, and so she finally does what is right and what will help her take down her father for good by releasing the Woman. The Woman can sense the commotion above and can hear the terrified cries of both Peggy and Ms Raton, so she is ready to fight when Peggy lets her go. 

The first person the Woman takes her rage out on is Belle. It’s a conflicting death for the audience because we know that Belle has finally made her stand against Chris, and she’s clearly been trapped in this marriage through fear and pressure. However, on the other hand, she has continued to let Chris abuse and mistreat their children for many years. Socket has been locked in the barn, Peggy has suffered emotional and physical abuse, and Brian has been warped into a hateful and violent creature. While it may have been difficult for Belle to leave, her decision to stay, to allow the abuse to continue, and to help her husband imprison the Woman make her complicit in Chris’ actions. Belle shows that people who don’t speak out against a problem are as bad as those who cause it. While her death may be potentially questionable for the audience, it’s completely black and white for the Woman. Belle has made a stand but it’s too little too late, and in the Woman’s eyes, Belle is as guilty as Chris and Brian. 

The Woman finally getting her revenge on both Brian and Chris is the catharsis that the audience needs at the end of a movie like this. She is not only getting revenge for herself, she is getting revenge for Socket, Ms Raton, Peggy, and even Belle. Chris has very clear opinions about the way men and women should be. He is raising Brian in the way he expects men to be, and he tells Peggy that women are “only good for one thing.” There’s no arguing or reasoning with the way Chris is, and probably no changing his warped opinions on the world. Peggy knows that talking doesn’t work and so she lets the Woman use her more primal solution to problems to do what Peggy and Belle were never able to do. She wipes Chris and Brian out of the family forever.

At the end of The Woman, we’re left with a very broken family unit, who are bonded by trauma and ready to leave behind what Chris has done to them. The Woman wordlessly joins the group together, leading Darlin’ into the forest while Socket follows on their heels. Peggy is given a choice, and after some consideration, she decides to join the group in the hopes of finding the support she needs after losing a large chunk of her blood family. It’s a hopeful ending that these women have the opportunity to rebuild themselves and live together without the threat of Chris, or any form of hateful masculinity creeping into their existence. 

There’s no denying that The Woman is a difficult watch, and even 10 years later the story still feels as relevant as it did when it was first released. The issues of domestic violence, sexual abuse, and women being more at risk of repeated and severe forms of abuse are still prevalent in society. Chris is a representation of the toxicity which is still prevalent today and lurking in many corners of our lives. It’s hard to imagine the full extent of Chris’ actions, but the more we find out about how far-reaching his abuse is to his wife, his children, and a random woman which he believes he has some sort of claim over, the more we release how deep-rooted his hatred for women is. 

The story which The Woman is telling is a vital one. It shows us that hateful, misogynistic people aren’t always open about their beliefs, and they may be upstanding members of the community. It shows us that we can’t believe what we see at face value and that the most skilled liars can hide even the most terrible of crimes from the rest of the world. The Woman is a story of a man trying to ‘save’ a feral woman and ‘fix’ her to turn her into a more upstanding member of society. But in the end, it is the Woman who saves the Cleeks from their abuser, setting them free from their societal expectations, and allowing them to leave a freer life.

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