Perhaps we can make 10 Cloverfield Lane this year’s Mad Max Fury Road? They certainly have some things in common.
[very spoilery spoilers ahead]
Both are abuse narratives told without ever going over-the-top in showing the abuse, and both are movies that put the agency of the abused woman front and center for the entire movie. And their heroines – Furiosa and Michelle – end up both being defined by the same thing: a choice to fight for others rather than running away and hiding.
Michelle is a fabulous Furiosa-level heroine, by the way. People have complained about the 10 Cloverfield Lane ending not making sense, or being tacked on, but I think it made perfect sense considering what Michelle’s character arc had been throughout the movie. This article sums it up nicely, in fact: the movie doesn’t end on a bleak note of ‘wow, see what you get when you sacrifice safety for freedom?’ it ends on the really quite optimistic note of Michelle, having regained her agency after almost a lifetime’s worth of abuse, ready to start winning her future back.
The movie makes it clear that Michelle’s treatment at the hands of others doesn’t make her any less resourceful, any less clever, or any less capable of SINGLEHANDEDLY DOWNING A KILLER ALIEN BIOSHIP A HUNDRED TIMES BIGGER THAN SHE IS. (Yes, that is a thing that happens in this film). If Cloverfield’s monster was 9/11, 10 Cloverfield Lane’s monster is Abusive Men, and it makes for such a good, if uncomfortable and nerve-wracking, movie. Please see it so I have others to talk about it with!