A Vigilante stars Olivia Wilde in the titular role as a woman with a mysterious past trying to stop abusers, rescue victims and search for closure. She could be an amateur Equalizer or Punisher, but there is nothing flashy or satisfying about the violence in this film. It is an uneasy, uneven mix of unrealistic scenarios set in a gritty, realistic world. I wanted to love it, but it did not quite work for me. I would have seen it if it was playing in a theater near me, but it never did so I added it to my queue and watched it as soon as it became available for home viewing.
A Vigilante had me at the title. A woman kicking ass—yes, please! I came with no preconceptions of how a woman vigilante would be depicted so do not think that I went into the film expecting a CW DC Comics television character like the Black Canary or a Marvel hero like Captain Marvel. I just ask for consistency. If it is going to be realistic, then the entire plot needs to be the same. If it is going to be unrealistic, then go for it, wow me.
A Vigilante was torn between embracing a respectable veneer and plumbing the psychological effects of domestic abuse on the protagonist then exploring the conflict of how she embraces violence in order to move forward with her life versus enjoying the catharsis of watching a woman turn tables and take the less followed path of force. The film’s narrative is also divided into the past when she is recovering in a group home with other women who survived physical abuse and her present on the road meting out cruel justice. The narrative structure successfully kept me on the hook to find out her complete backstory, but the optics felt a little distasteful in retrospect—we get to hear what feels like real women’s stories of pain just for this trite and unsatisfying ending? It does not seem worth it.
A Vigilante seems inspired by Chantal Akerman’s film style. Her films are characterized by seeing minute changes in routine until there is an emotional explosion culminating in a violent denouement. We get lulled into the monotony of life on the road—what the protagonist is like by herself, when she is with a person who needs her help and when she is with someone whom she can attack. Her demeanor in private and public is an extreme contrast between cool, efficient cruelty and a person who cannot keep it together.
If A Vigilante ultimately fails, it is not Wilde’s fault. She goes through an incredible range of emotions over the ninety-one minute runtime. J’adore Wilde after watching her directorial debut film, Booksmart, so I was already going in with lots of good will, which Wilde never needed. She seems like a charming person in real life, and as an actor, she clearly relished the opportunity to carry the movie, which she does consistently. If I had to come up with a detraction of Wilde, it is that when I initially saw her performances earlier in her career, I asked if she was taking Summer Glau’s job. It is not a criticism, but a compliment. Her emotionally rigorous performance is what will make any viewer stay tuned.
A Vigilante frustrated me when the filmmaker made deliberate choices of what the viewer could and could not see. When she is acting as a vigilante, we see her opening blow and the wake of her beatdown, or during one scene, chaotic cinema so we cannot fully absorb her moments of triumph against all odds. It is as if she is not real during the time when she is inflicting harm on a stranger, but when it is time for her to confront her demons and be physically vulnerable, we get unblinking coverage of her as the battered one, reverting to her past role. There is an emotional honesty in showing a powerful protagonist regress in the face of trauma and create a nightmarishly plausible though cinematic way for her to return to the abuser, but it also felt exploitive and consistent with our visual comfort with watching violence inflicted on women. It is more countercultural to create a realistic image of a woman who enjoys inflicting violence on bad people yet it is the exact image that we are denied. I understand not wanting the audience to enjoy violence, and there are ways to depict violence without making it desirable—just ask Brazilian filmmakers Fernando Meirelles and Katia Lund, but then do not make a protagonist who relishes hurting people. Maybe do not open similarly to The Girl in the Spider’s Web. This facet of her profile is just as real as her past. Refusing to show her be *gasp* unpalatable and potentially repugnant in just as much detail as her final battle’s is just the risk that you have to take when you decide to make a woman become a vigilante.
A Vigilante wants to have it both ways. The film wants us to root for her committing violence, but it also wants to tackle domestic violence without necessarily connecting all the dots. It has brilliant moments such as the first way that her tormentor tortures her, how she always wears gloves when she prepares for a beat down or how everything does not completely go according to plan, but the actual story is ridiculously absurd and Rube Goldbergian that it loses any sense of realism at all. What is this film trying to convey to us? It is simultaneously censoring our pleasure, making it fleeting, but drawing out the pain and difficulty of revenge. I don’t mind the messiness, but I want to see everything, and I ultimately felt cheated. I never got to feel the freedom that the protagonist allegedly achieves. Show your work! Instead I get a soap opera ending after a long gritty road. Shame!
By the end of A Vigilante, it seems to beg for a sequel or at least a television series as it fully embraces the fruit of the protagonist’s labor as if that denouement would ever fully heal someone who experienced that level of pain. In the end, the film cheated itself. If the film was aiming for joy from violence, then it needed to do so at whenever it could. The overall story is inconsistent and cannot serve two masters.
Also for all future filmmakers, if a film’s subject is even remotely related to violence against women, can you please stop setting your film in a barren winter wasteland. We get it! No country for women.
If you are a Wilde fan, I would highly recommend that you see A Vigilante since she delivers a magnificent performance otherwise I would suggest that you skip it. If I am going to watch a woman go through so much emotional and physical agony, I am also going to need to see her kick ass. All or nothing.