Rewatching was easier than I expected. Leaves me in this weird state where I’m fully locked in but also physically rejecting everything I’m seeing, there’s multiple moments where I genuinely want to look away and still can’t. The discomfort isn’t cheap, it’s targeted and it all comes back to this idea that the adults are rotting in their own inability to move on, clinging to youth in ways that bleed into the lives of their kids. Shaun’s girlfriend’s mum crying after being told he likes her because she’s older is the most clear throughline, you can feel the contradiction tearing through her. The same goes for Peaches dad trying to relive himself through his own fucking daughter, or the other projecting his own insecurities until it curdles into something I will not speak of. What hits so hard is how young the kids actually feel, there’s no illusion, no safety, you can pass that off as pure exploitation but it’s undeniably the point. Everytime an adult crosses the line it lands as a full on violation instead of shock value. To me that ends up feeling less like provocation than it does exposure, dragging you into this ugly cultural fixation on youth into the light and not dressing it up. The ending is so perfect man. The abortion question is so fucking ironic. It circles everything back to the same core idea, this inability to let go, grow up and accept responsibility. It’s not about wishing life away but about choosing escape over change. I fucking hate this film but I’m completely absorbed by it.
Rewatching was easier than I expected. Leaves me in this weird state where I’m fully locked in but also physically rejecting everything I’m seeing, there’s multiple moments where I genuinely want to look away and still can’t. The discomfort isn’t cheap, it’s targeted and it all comes back to this idea that the adults are rotting in their own inability to move on, clinging to youth in ways that bleed into the lives of their kids. Shaun’s girlfriend’s mum crying after being told he likes her because she’s older is the most clear throughline, you can feel the contradiction tearing through her. The same goes for Peaches dad trying to relive himself through his own fucking daughter, or the other projecting his own insecurities until it curdles into something I will not speak of. What hits so hard is how young the kids actually feel, there’s no illusion, no safety, you can pass that off as pure exploitation but it’s undeniably the point. Everytime an adult crosses the line it lands as a full on violation instead of shock value. To me that ends up feeling less like provocation than it does exposure, dragging you into this ugly cultural fixation on youth into the light and not dressing it up. The ending is so perfect man. The abortion question is so fucking ironic. It circles everything back to the same core idea, this inability to let go, grow up and accept responsibility. It’s not about wishing life away but about choosing escape over change. I fucking hate this film but I’m completely absorbed by it.
