"You don't like anything, you're the most depressed person I have ever met, and excuse me for saying this.......but I think you need professional help"
"So you are blowing me off because I'm a little depressed"
"Once you get through this 'life suck' phase I'm sure a lot of people would want to be your friend"
Hi movie freaks, it's Abeegail again, welcome to my blog. The first time I came across this movie was on Pinterest, I saw a snippet were the main character said "I wonder how long it would take anyone to notice if I just stopped talking" I was so intrigued, to find out why someone would say something like that.
Speak is based on the novel by Laurie Halse Anderson and was released in 2004. The movie follows Melinda Sordino, a high school freshman who becomes socially isolated after calling the police during a summer party. Everyone at school hates her for “ruining” the party, but nobody knows the real reason behind the call, Melinda was sexually assaulted at that party. The film stars Kristen Stewart, yes from Twilight, this was long before Twilight blew up, and honestly this was her best performance yet.
I love how the story is told, it shows the numbness, the alienation, that comes with going through something like that, it shows how hard it is to explain what happened, to explain your pain and where it hurts to people who have finalized what you are. Speak doesn't take the route of revenge or violence as to what happens to Melinda, instead it shows the psychological aftermath of what happened than the event itself. Melinda begins disappearing emotionally from her own life. She withdraws from classmates, struggles to communicate, avoids attention, and internally collapses while everyone around her interprets her silence as attitude or weirdness.
That’s what makes the film feel painfully real. That's what makes it even more painful because everyone misunderstands as Melinda loses herself.
No one would have played a better Melinda, Kristen Stewart was the perfect casting for this role. In the hands of another actor it might have not gone as smooth, Melinda barely talks for large portions of the film. Most of the emotional storytelling happens through body language, facial expressions, hesitation, and internal narration and Kristen Stewart totally carries it. She has her way of portraying emotional shutdown without making the character feel empty or plain or the way she portray
Melinda's trauma, the exhaustion, the embarrassment, the self-blame, the inability to explain yourself clearly even when you desperately want someone to understand.
One thing I see and I have seen in other movies is the fact that social environment can be cruel sometimes especially high school. With teenagers that are still finding who they and are still confused, all packed in the same space there's bound to be issues. Nobody knows why Melinda called the police, so they invent narratives, she becomes “the weird girl.” “The snitch.” “The drama queen." And escaping such identity is in highschool is hard. This shows how institutions often fail vulnerable teenagers. Adults notice Melinda is struggling, but nobody fully reaches her because they misunderstand her behavior.
I love the realism in this movie. Melinda didn't just magically got herself back, she didn't become confident overnight. Her healing was not big and dramatic, it was slow and small like; telling the truth, naming what happened, allowing yourself to exist again. She slowly overcomes and even got her revenge and that's what makes the end satisfying.
Speak is not just about sexual assault or a rape case. It's about silence; internal silence, social silence, institutional silence. It explores how trauma disconnects people not only from others, but from themselves. And how your sense of personality is lost after being violated. To “speak” in this movie is not merely to talk, it's to get your sense of person back. Speak is not your everyday Hollywood movie, it is quiet, uncomfortable, and emotionally restrained. At the end of the day you wonder how overwhelming someone's pain is that they no longer know how to communicate it? And What does it take for them to finally be heard?
It's Abeegail ✨💗
Thank you for Reading 🥹
The images are screenshot from the movie.
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