Who thought the waitress was gonna be raped?
I did, i think they hinted the posibility but that was a bridge too far i guess
shareIt was deliberate. The movie builds up the sexual aggression in the boys starting with the hooker ditching them, leading up to the central scene with the offer to Lauren where the crucial question is if she is threatened or not.
"You couldn't be much further from the truth" - several
In that respect, I think it was quite tame. They were prepared to trash that pub and almost kill the landlord yet they left Lauren (and the escort) more or less untouched (if more than a little angry and upset).
shareWe are dealing with morality with in a group on the verge of crime. The reference to Reservoir Dogs is no coincidence.
The psychology is actually quite sharp and thrilling if you like movies on the edge.
The escort didn't sell out. The landlord did. They would never hurt Lauren because she is with Miles.
Hitting the landlord like a stroke of cricket is the ultimate dark humour for upperclass violence. The wine quiz, reminiscent of 007, jammed with bodily fluids comes in second.
Lauren wanted him to choose between her and the club. It's implied earlier. That's why she referred the crucial question to Miles. She was not afraid. She knew they wouldn't harm her.
Scherfig is among the best.
"You couldn't be much further from the truth" - several
Question: where did the landlord's daughter/waitress figure into this?
In the play as originally written for stage, there is no Lauren. The club members harass the waitress. They pretty much do the same thing to her that they did to Lauren in the movie.
In the play the landlord gets angry about them trashing the club AND harassing his daughter.
I thought this was a bit of a plot hole. They hired an escort who turned them down, called Lauren (or Alistair did) to proposition her....but said nothing at or about the attractive waitress. One of them mentions briefly that she's "tasty" and that's the extent of it.
Was it because the waitress seemed to pick up on their asshattery pretty quickly and was emitting a "don't even think about it jerkoffs" vibe? She seemed put out with her father for kissing up to them.
That was the explanation I came up with. Because honestly, otherwise why would these guys not target her? A good-looking girl about their own age who is in and out of the room all night? She would seem like the ideal target.
Thoughts?
As to where the waitress figures into - I was answering another poster and we got beyond the waitress' role.
I didn't read the play and thus interpret only the art of the movie.
However, to answer your other question, why they did not target the waitress, it's a morally complex scene. The guys were not evil monsters. It was a group of people consisting of real evil ones like Alistair and good guys like Miles. And a lot of in-betweens, both applying and succumbing to group pressure.
So, they didn't target the waitress because they were not the kind of people who would do that to a stranger as a group. To do the had-she-been-targeted/were-she-a-sell-out, is too hypothetical I think.
As to the escort, it was just a matter of expectations not cleared in advanced. She didn't sell out and they respected that.
"You couldn't be much further from the truth" - several
Lauren wasn't left untouched. She was groped, and then molested and treated like a ragdoll by one of the boys (the awkward sex-obsessed one).
Thankfully though this was one of those few recent films that didn't end in graphic sexual violence towards women, an all too regular trope these days. Plus, as misogynist as these boys were this was primarily a story about class privilege and bigotry, not sexism per se, so it made sense that the main victim turned out to be the Scottish pub landlord. Their main hatred and violent contempt was reserved for the lower-classes, basically people like me, not women per se. I'm sure upper-class Sloaney women would have been fine in their presence.
Time for the working classes to get angry and vent their rage like the feminists, civil rights groups and gay rights campaigners. After all, the biggest factor contributing to discrimination and hardship today isn't gender, race or sexuality. It's socio-economic background. So why aren't we doing anything about it!?!