V for Vendetta: D for Disappointed

I have never in my life been disappointed in a film's last 5 minutes the way this film disappointed me.

What ruined it for me? The last line uttered by Natalie Portman's character Evey: "Some people remember [the monumentally historic and world-changing events] of tonight. I remember the man."

In such a passionate film about absolute power and corruption in government, it is amazing that such a lame ending would suffice. Maybe that's why it got a March release and not a summer or fall. (Yes, the Critic's claws are showing.)

A man calling himeself "V" dresses up in a Guy Fawkes mask, a cape and goes around fighting for the innocent in the face of government corruption. And Evey is supposed to have some feelings of attraction for him?

OK, so he does have a really cool house--a cave really--that's decorated with outlawed works of art and antiquities that the government deems inappropriate for mass consumption. The mask is a bit freaky, frozen as it is in a premanent and eerie grin. But the cape and the rest of his suit are cool. Plus, he plays music on London's PA system when he blows stuff up. And he makes great eggs-in-a-basket. So what's not to like? I mean, what are the quirks that make this man a little more than an eccentric, a little less than a psychopath?

For one thing, he kidnaps Evey--twice! In each instance, he saves her. But he also tells her she can't leave. There isn't a lot out in the world for her at this point, now that she's been circumstantially linked as his accomplice. But she's not sure she wants to put her heart and soul on the line for this guy and his cause. She's not sure if he's sane enough to be the leader out of the darkness that is her country's current rule.

(CAUTION: SPOILERS AHEAD) The second time he kidnaps Evey, he makes her believe she has been kidnapped by the government. He tortures her. Let me say this again: HE TORTURES HER. He shaves her head and repeatedly asks, in the form of a suited and faceless (the lights are always bright on her face) interogater, where V can be found. She repeatedly says she doesn't know. The only thing that sustains her are letters from a woman in the next cell, written on toilet paper and slid through a crack in the wall. The woman is a lesbian, and had been a movie star. But she was arrested for being gay and, therefore we presume, a deviant in the eyes of the powerful. OK, this sounds inconsistent, I know. V finally releases Evey when she says she's ready to die, that she has accepted her fate. She wanders out of her "cell" and back into V's underworld.

In some sense, yes, she is free. She has been willing to die for something. And there is a great strength in that for her. Perhaps now Evey understands that her parents' deaths weren't in vain, having died for what they believed in. But at some point, Evey realizes that she can make a difference. This revelation, sadly, seems linked to her feelings for V. Stockholm syndrome is the well-known temporary condition which makes prisoners identify and sympathize with their captors. Was this a factor for Evey, or did she finally see her ruthless and corrupt rulers for what they are?

Whatever the case, she decides to help V bring down the government.

My companion at the film later called V an idea. So, why oh why if this whole movie is about the idea that the people are more powerful than their government, should the main female character tell us that she remembers the man? Why does she think of the man more than the idea? Was it the cape?

Herein is a fundamental issue I have with Dick Flicks: That an extremely powerful political message must be flavored with the spice of romance. Without it, whould I be any less touched by the film's humanity? No. Would I be less able to identify with the main characters? No. I don't want to believe that Evey's motivation was her love for V. I want to believe that she had to do what was right. Instead, Hollywood has relegated her to a ghetto in which only love and women reside, and in which only men must be admired for their courage. We saw that V was fallable and human and vengeful, and yet despite all of that, Evey thinks of him, the messenger, and not the message.

Of course, this is one of my fundamental problems with religion, too, that people are worshipped as much as the ideas that they bring.

OK then, I must be having a post-stoner moment: is V Christ?