Ready or Not 2: Here I Come (Spoiler Edition)
If you've seen the two pieces I posted last week, you know the first Ready or Not is a film I have a deep affection for. In that piece, I argued it is a perfect film. I also posted a spoiler free review for the new sequel that hit theaters last Friday, Ready or Not 2: Here I Come. I wouldn't go so far as to argue it's a perfect film, but I do think it's an excellent sequel. Because I didn't want to get into spoilers, I had to leave out some of the reasons I do think it's such an excellent example of a well made sequel, so I thought I'd do that here.
The thing about sequels, is that there are really only two reasons for them to exist, in the artistic sense. Either the filmmakers feel they have more to say using the concept or they feel some genuine connection to fans of the first film, and do want to give them the sequel they're clamoring for. I'm sure there are some people who might say being grateful to fans isn't a valid intention, that it's not a pure enough creative intention. I can only imagine that if an audience reaction to anything I created changed my life and career the way audiences reacting to Ready or Not did for the many of the people behind it, the gratitude would be genuine. Since gratitude is a genuine human reaction, I don't see it as any less valid than any other reason to want to tell a story. A desire to say "thank you" to people who've impacted your life so positively, is a desire to say something.
Of course, there's the money, when you're talking about anything in the film business (especially franchises), but no film ever gets made with a desire to lose money. There's a tendency to treat all sequels as if they're "cash grabs." Every film is a "cash grab" to some degree though. Without the people who think they can make money on it, it never gets made with more than a few thousands dollars scraped together by people who believe in it, which pretty much guarantees it never gets any major distribution deal. If it's getting a nationwide release, even if it's "limited release," this is still part of the equation.
Ready or Not 2 strikes me as the filmmakers wanting to give fans something they've been clamoring for, wanting to expand some of the ideas they had in the original, and the degree it's successful at both, makes it a great sequel. Considering how often and how badly sequels miss either of those marks, there's nothing wrong with it being a great sequel, even if it doesn't quite live up to the original. The original set a high bar, and probably eighty or ninety percent of films released each year, originals, sequels or otherwise, don't get very close to it.
In the first film, we know little to nothing about Grace. When we're introduced to her, she's Alex Le Domas fiancé, on their wedding day. Within a few minutes, she's Alex Le Domas wife. We learn she was a foster child, and growing up without her own family made her decide "living in sin" wasn't enough. If Alex Le Domas loved her, and wanted her to stay in his life, he was going to have to marry her. She pulls the Hide and Seek card from the box, and we're off to the races. All we ever really know about Grace is that she's not one of them/us in the way the Le Domas use that phrase in relation to people marrying into the family and having to play a game. What the original suggests, is that Grace gets the Hide and Seek card, because she's not one of them.
What we learn about her over the course of Ready or Not is that she's tenacious, determined, intelligent and resourceful. We don't know much about how she came to be that person, which in its own way is great for a film like it, because it makes it that much easier for audiences to identify with her. It makes it that much easier for the audience to treat her as a proxy. She's the only person in that film without a background in a level of privilege most people can't even imagine, and she's the only person who isn't some combination of buffoon and homicidal (other than possibly Daniel, Alex's brother), though she does kill a few people in self defense.
The thing is... Samara Weaving was so excellent in the role, Grace has become a deeply beloved character. Fans wanted to spend more time with Weaving playing Grace. Ready or Not 2 devotes the majority of the time it gives to character, basically giving audiences a chance to understand how Grace came to be the character she was at the beginning of the first, the character who could survive that insanity, and crucially, why she wasn't one of them. It also expands the reason for her being so dead set on getting married. Essentially losing her sister gives us a more substantial an understanding. As a sequel, it expands Grace, in multiple ways, including giving her an agency the first film didn't.
The ending of the film expands on who Grace is, by basing it in who the audience has thought she was, in both films. It's a glorious ending for the character. She is seizing her agency, in a way she hasn't had the opportunity to through either film. We've watched, over two films, as these extremely privileged people have underestimated her determination and resourcefulness, at every turn. Grace isn't a superhero. She isn't a genius. She's just had to develop those traits in a way they haven't, because of the privilege they have, and in the end, that's also the thing that saves her.
It's a smart piece of writing to put Grace in a position where the audience feels she's going to have to become the thing the two films have treated as villainous, for reasons very different than those characters have become villainous. She's not chasing power. She's not chasing wealth. She's just trying to save her sister, and there's something heartbreaking in the idea that she's survived what she has, but she will now have to become one of the people who may be put in the position to have to hunt down some poor soul like herself. It's a different kind of danger and jeopardy. On top of that, she's going to be locked in this world, full of these vile people, basically chained to Titus Danforth, who is clearly a sadistic sociopath.
That it's Titus who shows her the key to how to escape it, and for the first time in both films, she actively makes the choice to set herself apart from them, to demonstrate why she was never one of them, it's a great moment for the character, and fans of the character. That it's possible because as Elijah Wood's character says, "No one ever thought someone would turn down that much power," is really the moment both films have been leading to. It gives Grace the opportunity to seize the agency that's been taken from her over the course of both films.
Ready or Not 2 gives more agency to all of its characters than the first film did, which also expands on this commentary about wealth, tradition and privilege. In the first film, the Le Domas don't have a whole lot of choice about trying to kill Grace. If they want to live, they have to kill her. The Le Domas heirs, Tony, Daniel, Alex, Emilie and Helene, didn't even have a choice about entering into the deal with Mr. Le Bail. They were born into this condition. Fitch and Charity are really the only two characters in the film who've had some level of agency, having been given a choice about entering the family, knowing what they were signing up for. Making that choice is what makes Fitch and Charity one of them.
In Ready or Not 2, the High Council characters who are trying to kill Grace and her sister, Faith (Katherine Newton), all have other choices they can make. One of them does try to attempt to make a different choice, and ends up dead at the hands of one of their hapless competitors, but also sets Grace up to be able to save herself and her sister.
It tells us the rest don't have to zealously hunt Grace and Faith, but save the one who tries to explain the option to marry into one of the families, they all do, because they want The High Seat. Any of them could have taken a weapon, gone and found a place to sit, and waited to see if someone else was going to kill Grace. They wouldn't have lost anything, as long as someone killed her, as we see when Martina Rajan (played by Masa Lizdek) crashes the gates and leaves them all to it. She's the only one who makes that choice. Even Wan Chen Xing (played by Olivia Cheng) is angling to get The High Seat, in her attempt to make a deal with Grace. They all have choices the Le Domas basically didn't, and most of them choose to try to kill Grace to get the High Seat anyway.
All the power and wealth these people already have isn't enough, because it's never enough for people who lust for power and wealth, and the cost of the opportunity isn't as important as the fact that there is an opportunity to get more.
Then there are the ways Ready or Not 2 inverts the moments from the first film, so it does manage to give some degree of nod to them, something the fans will appreciate, without being cheap fan service. It's not stopping to point and say, "Oh, hey look, remember that moment you loved, that thing you thought was great, well we're doing it again." It references them, but inverts them too. They are much closer to the better version of "Easter eggs" than they are to being fan service.
One of the funnier moments is Grace, having just gunned down Francesca El Caido (played by Maia Jae is a delight in the role), sings/mutters a few lines from the Hide and Seek Song from the first film. A less deft hand would have had Grace playing it over a PA or some other clumsy thing. We get a few lines, at a moment where it makes sense, adds to the comedy, and gives us more insight into Grace's state of mind as she's heading into the lodge.
There's also the ring, at the film's end. In the end of the first film Grace takes off her wedding ring, throws it at Alex whose betrayed her because he couldn't possess her, and says, "I want a divorce," at which point he explodes, as his family did before him. It's a good comedic moment.
This time, there is a moment with a ring, but it's very different. We watch Grace stab Titus in the neck with the pen that's been used to draw blood for the members of the High Council to sign Le Bail's contracts in, and she takes the ring that is the sign he occupies the High Seat. It goes from being shocking, to being revelatory, to then being a suspenseful question about her intent. When Weaving sneers, "There are no rules about killing family," it's as good a moment as any in the first film. When Elijah Wood as the lawyer says that she does indeed now have the power of the High Seat, she bellows "Get on your fucking knees," to the assembled Council members, and it causes the viewer to ask whether we really want that for Grace. Do we want her to occupy the High Seat, with all it would entail, even if we think she would be a better steward of this power?
It's a great moment, because it can go a number of different ways. Have they broken Grace? There's some possibility that's true, as she's said to Ursula Danforth minutes before, "You took my hope." Is she going to seize control of all of this, and exact her revenge on these people? Has the loss of that hope meant the best way she thinks she can protect herself is to have all this power? Is she going to try to use it to better ends than it has been till now? It would have been tragic, but it would also be understandable, given what we've seen she's been put through. But, Grace would have lost the thing that made her different from these people, the reason we as the audience have been rooting for the through both films.
Instead, she does the thing that has defined her difference from them, a thing none of them, including apparently the devil himself, Mr. Le Bail, ever thought to even consider someone would do. She gives it all up, and her revenge is to use what she's learned about them. If they have to fight over it, they'll destroy each other. She can get to walk free, of all of it, with her soul intact and her sister by her side. It gives her agency, gives her the family she wanted, and sets her free.
Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gyllett also deserve credit for giving Sara Michelle Gellar and Elijah Wood great characters to play. Because of Gellar's status as an icon to a certain generation due to Cruel Intentions, I Know What You Did Last Summer and, of course, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, she's often cast in little more than oversized cameos. Wood has spent his time since playing Frodo in Lord of the Rings in odd characters. A number of those characters have given Wood the chance to show of his considerable comedic chops, and he's great here too. They both have some great moments.
The other thing I couldn't get into in the spoiler free review was that a big part of the original film's power comes from the set and art design. The way they kitted out the Le Domas mansion made for plenty of beautiful cinematography, as well as giving support to the characters. Because a good deal of this film takes place outdoors, and then in what amounts to a club house/event space for a golf course, it didn't leave quite as much opportunity for the art and set departments to shine. It's not going to be the kind of environment that has as much character as a private mansion, because it does things like host weddings and so forth. The Temple in the third act was really the big opportunity, and like the costume department nailing their opportunity to give Grace an iconic look, the set and art departments come through through.
I've seen some criticism about TItus (Shawn Hatosy) seeming to turn as a character, but I didn't have that issue. We see from the beginning Titus is blunt instrument of a human being, and not particularly stable. We also know Titus and Ursula's father, Chester Danforth (David Cronenberg) has been preparing them for this all of their lives. It seems to me, Titus and Ursula are set up as the mirror image to the Le Domas.
The Danforth's are the only characters in either of these films who seem to have prepared for this. The Le Domas, like the rest of the Council members in the sequel, are all essentially rendered useless by their wealth and privilege. The Danforth's are the only one's who've taken the deal with Mr. Le Bail seriously enough to prepare for this possibility.
Where the rest of them are hapless idiots, the preparation, the focus on legacy, tradition and passing on power, have made Titus a sociopath. He's so obsessed with fulfilling his father's legacy, being the one who sits in the High Seat, it causes him not only to kill his sister, but to show Grace her chance to get free of all the Le Bail's madness and machinations.
I took this as the writer's essentially saying that the legacy of privilege is to either produce people who are so disconnected from the rest of the world, and who are so free from the need to have even a basic idea how to take care of themselves, it's going to produce a lot of hapless idiots. On the other hand, the kind of relentless focus on maintaining that power, the idea that the entire point of family and parenthood is to prepare the next generations is going to maintain and expand it, produces sociopaths too. Given the experience of being in the United States in the last few decades, I can't say the writer's would be wrong to assert this. The wealthiest and most powerful people in the nation do seem to either be hapless idiots or deeply sadistic sociopaths.
I don't think Ready or Not 2 quite lives up to the original. I also didn't expect it to. The original is a really rare film in how good at is at doing so many different things. It wasn't a disappointing experience for me either, for all these reasons, and because we did get to spend another film with Samara Weaving giving her all to playing Grace.
