MovieChat Forums > Mignonnes (2020) Discussion > Does Anyone Actually Want To Talk About ...

Does Anyone Actually Want To Talk About the Movie? (Spoilers)

posted 4 years ago by Maya (116)
2 replies | jump to latest

I know there are a lot of angry people on this board but if anyone who has watched the whole film would like to talk about it that would be nice...

I thought the discussion of "becoming a woman" was really interesting with the juxtaposition of Ami's friends constantly not wanting to be perceived as little girls while in her home life she was pretty much a second mom to her brother. It also stuck out to me that her aunt told her story of being married as a child and wished the same thing for Ami, which was so disturbing but in a completely opposite way as their dance group. Hypersexuality vs. hypermodesty were both equally not okay even though one was discouraged and one encouraged.

When she ran from her father's wedding day to the dance competition it was like she was running from one extreme end to the other, thinking "this is definitely not okay" so the opposite must be the correct one. I think her recognizing that there is a middle ground in the end was a great ending.

I also thought it was interesting how each of the girls ostracized each other for different reasons and that willingness to achieve each other's approval was so important. I definitely remember experiencing that as a pre-teen and the stress and anxiety involved in trying to keep up with your friends. The fact that Ami ultimately was the one who took it too far was also super realistic, and reminded me of the Mean Girls narrative actually.

Any other thoughts?

[–] Keelai (32773) 4 years ago

I totally agree about the extremes. The ending was perfect because Amy decided for herself what to be which finally made her happy.

Amy didn't want to end up like her distraught mother who had to pretend to be happy and welcome to the second wife. They were poor, but Amy's mother had created a more luxurious bedroom for the new wife than she had. Amy is upset about her mother's plight and rejects her Muslim culture, then her father and finally her own mother. I was shocked by Amy ignoring her mother after she fainted in the kitchen. There was so much hatred in her eyes against her own mother as she lay on the floor.

Amy was acting out by chasing girls (really bullies) she knew represented opposite her Muslim culture in dress and behavior. Amy eventually acts much worst than they do.

Girls that age tend to be very emotional and a lot of her desperation is felt. I found this movie to be very intense, upsetting and sad. I felt really bad for her mother who eventually became an unsung hero by understanding what her daughter had been going through and supporting her. Great scene when she protected her against Auntie.

[–] brux (14666) 4 years ago

I really do not know anything about this whole controversy other than one bit of a video that I happened to catch that showed these young girls.

Being an older man, I don't really know what to think, except that I do know from experience with children that they have sexual feelings and that the world manipulates us all. Is it fair to manipulate children? I don't think so. That is how all our problems get transmitted through the millennia and stay with us.

Children are innocent and hungry to learn, and they cannot imagine that there are thousands of years of human history, evolution that cultures know how to manipulate them without them ever understanding it. It is only as I got to be over 50 and that I put effort into it, with reading, thinking, discussing, etc that I began to realize how thin our idea of morals and civilization is.

I cannot idealize children, they can be mean, selfish, unconscious ... but they have an excuse. The rest of us don't really have that, but also most children are born with the sense of fairness, an inbred understanding of the golden rule, and have to be brainwashed to steal and hurt other people, and yet the consequences of that are what we are dealing with on a global scale now.

I can't imagine what is it like to grow up as a child of these modern times. The adult ideas, the adult needs and the ideas in media, the sexuality and the violence. I prefer that I grew up in an earlier era.