Meeting your new
This website focuses on what I do with my own kids. Time for something different, a perspective on an outing with my Mum Rosie. Sometimes even as adults our mothers ask us to go on outings that we are a bit dubious about. My mum Rosie had requested I take her to see Hollywoods newest action comedy (not her usual taste) after hearing about it on the grapevine from her extensive list of social and professional contacts. So it was that I took my Mum last night to see The Spy Who Dumped Me written and directed by Susanna Fogel.
Rosie doesn’t often go to the movies, is in her seventies and, if I’m honest is rather conservative in her world view. I knew the movie featured graphic violence, lots of bad language and full frontal male nudity so I couldn’t imagine Mum would enjoy it. Given The Spy Who Dumped Me focuses on the exploits of two best friends, Audrey, played by Mila Kunis and Morgan, played by Kate McKinnon I invited Rosie’s best friend Christine along too. Making an event of it and thinking a little bubbles wouldn’t go astray I booked us into a Village Gold Class Chicks at the Flicks session. This would be a three course, best friend night out.
The Spy Who Dumped me follows Audrey and Morgan on a unique friendship enhanced travel biopic across Europe in the wake of a breakup that sees Audrey realising her boyfriend was not who he seemed. There are no relationship tensions between the women on which to propel the narrative. The genuine, intimate friendship of Morgan and Audrey is adeptly and humorously compared with that of a pseudo friend (don’t we all know those) and while the love interest/s are not minimised, they are not the be all. Ultimately, the movie is funny. I’m not a laugh out loud sort of girl but I found myself the loud laugher in our small Gold Class cinema.
In the past I have hated action movies. I have tended to perceive the action as being in movies for its own sake. Watching the Spy Who Dumped Me with my mother and her best friend giggling away in the seats behind me I had a revelation. With women as the central figures in action scenes my perspective changed. I watched closer, keen to see how the friends would respond, handle the car chases and dodge the bullets.
In general the two main characters are relatable, particularly in their no holds barred intimate sharing of personal details. Arguably the best scene in the movie is when Morgan and Audrey convince the villain they are not lying by telling all the personal secrets they know about the other, Audrey takes a long time to climax due to her anti-depressants and Morgan slept with her cousin. Perhaps I am conservative like Rosie but the swearing (non stop from both main characters) wasn’t relatable – women swear but I’ve never met women that swear this much. It may of course be an American thing. The violence of the movie which has been criticised by some male critics seemed appropriate given the genre. As for the full frontal male nudity, Rosie didn’t even notice it.
Highlights for me were the nod towards authoritative femininity – Morgan gushes at Gillian Anderson’s spy boss character for being in charge without compromising her femininity, female friendship focus, and laughs, lots of laughs.
As for Rosie – when I asked her what she thought of the movie she said “Wonderful, Fabulous. I liked the violence, it made me laugh. I didn’t like the swearing.” Walking out of the movie I could tell Rosie and Christine, friends for nearly 40 years had enjoyed themselves.
Susanna Fogel, you did good.
The Spy Who Dumped Me is showing at cinemas across Australia from August 9.
Rosie and Christine at the preview screening of The Spy Who Dumped Me
