loss of innocence in vengeance: trust, betrayal, & growing up
We’ve made it to my third and final installment in a series of posts about the film Vengeance. A couple of weeks ago I discussed the film’s messaging about what it’s like loving someone with an addiction. And last week I talked about grief and letting go of being right. This post is about the experience of loss of innocence.
This subject feels close to my heart, though I can’t exactly say why. I don’t know about you, but I’ve definitely been through some tough times when I had the deep sense of knowing “Well…I’m all grown up now.” These experiences are always both singular and mundane, somehow. I think Vengeance addresses the subject well.
If you’d like a synopsis of the film before continuing on, you may want to re-visit my first post in this series. Here are some of the main things to remember:
Ben is the hero of this story
Ben is making a podcast about the death of Abilene Shaw & her family’s response to the death
Abilene’s cause of death is theoretically overdose, but the Shaws believe she was murdered
spoilers & triggers
Vengeance is a film about a woman who may have been murdered, and her family is hoping to avenge her death. My commentary will touch on the topic of murder as well as reveal much of the conclusion to this film. Take care in reading my commentary.
the wake of loss of innocence
indicators of trust & how we lose them
For me, I can’t not think about the theme of loss of innocence when I think about Vengeance. Most of us go through life keeping an eye out for indicators of trust in the people around us. We may not even realize we’re doing it. But we’re looking for indicators of safety all the time. On a walk in an isolated area, maybe we’re looking for people with a dog or a baby. At a new job, maybe it’s making note of a co-worker’s coffee mug with messaging that resonates with us. For people with a visible marginalized identity, they may be looking for people who look like them.
For a writer like Ben, he quickly feels kindred with Quentin Sellers, a well-spoken, educated record-producer. Quentin speaks beautifully, poetically even, about our role in the universe, about the innate creativity of the people around him, about how people can surprise us. Re-watching Quentin’s first scene in the movie for the umpteenth time while I prepared for this blog series, I could feel myself smiling as he spoke. I cannot overstate how beautiful this scene is.
Ben is completely taken in by this character. I was, too. All the indicators of trust are there: he seems kind, humble. So incredibly sincere. Quentin helped set an interesting tone for the movie because he is partially the reason you start to wonder what the movie is even about. Everyone is just so human; there’s no need for vengeance here.
Ben & Quentin, the bromance that will never be.
The first time I watched this movie, I felt a little sick when I realized what Quentin is: he’s the villain. He’s the smooth-talking, good-looking predator I’ve been warned to keep an eye out for my entire life. But his understated manner of being snuck by me, just like it did for Ben. I’ve had that feeling in real life many times, and it sucks. It has made me question my own judgment and made me question my understanding of my own little corner of the universe.
when innocence is taken away
I love talking about loss of innocence in the therapy room because many times, when we have to sit with this feeling, the discomfort sends us the message that we’re doing something wrong. It always feels like such an honor to deliver the news that the feeling you’re having isn’t about wrongdoing. It’s a feeling that makes complete sense given the circumstances, whatever those circumstances may be. Loss of innocence moments are incredibly vulnerable because they force us to admit that there are things we did not know or understand until this moment. And then we have to live with the reality that we’ll never be able to go back to who we were before this moment.
“When we’re able to engage with gray area, innocence cannot help but be eroded.”
Exploring this subject through the lens of this film is a great example of why I wanted to write media commentary for my blog. Something film can do well as a medium is ask us to safely question our reality and our values. If you’re open to it, you can have a meta experience watching Vengeance, just like in many other films asking complex questions. I do definitely think there are ways to experience loss of innocence when we’ve done something wrong, like committing a murder, for instance. But this film asks us to sit with the discomfort of wondering whether Ben has done something wrong when he ultimately makes the choice to exact vengeance. When we’re able to engage with gray area, innocence cannot help but be eroded. Our own innocence–as viewers of this film–is not what it was at the beginning of the movie.
[Just in case I’m endorsing gray area a little too much: murder is bad, don’t do it. Please lose your innocence a different way.]
holding ambivalence in adulthood
One of our developmental tasks of adulthood is having to sit with ambivalence; we have to hold mixed emotions and conflicting truths. Conflicting truths like believing certain behaviors are wrong, while also sitting without regret at having engaged in one of those behaviors. Holding both at the same time is one of the more difficult skills we can develop because we have to let go of knowing what we think we know. When Ben returns home to New York, he is a changed man. His foundation has been shaken because he learned that the world has the potential to be just as dark as we fear but that moving toward that darkness can, sometimes, connect us to something deeper and more meaningful.
[Again, murder=bad. Do not murder.]
“We have to hold conflicting truths”
Early in the film, Ben has a line that feels so quintessentially of a particular time and type of person: “So as like, a personal boundary…. I don’t avenge deaths.” Great line, so funny. It does an amazing job setting the tone for the first part of the story, but this line has no place in the end. Death by oxy overdose is not a joke or an interesting story begging for a podcast platform. It’s a tragedy that contains true suffering and injustice, with or without a clear person to blame. Ben went through a lot in order to be a person who is capable of internalizing the meaning of what happened to Abilene. How strange to follow him through an entire movie then not really know who he will be after the credits roll.
dating culture & regret
Other issues that come up for me in watching Vengeance that feel particularly relevant to my clients are dating culture and the role of regret in how we live our lives. The theme of regret bookends the film, starting with a quote from Ben about the importance of living without regret and ending with a soliloquy from Sharon Shaw about how she can’t imagine being able to live life to the fullest without living with regret. And without the beast that modern dating has become, there wouldn’t be a framework for this movie.
For some reason, I had a really hard time writing about both of these topics within the context of Vengeance. I couldn’t get them to gel even though both are rich and worthy of discussion. I suppose there’s always the option for a fourth installment of commentary on this movie, but for now I’m letting them go.
social justice issues in vengeance
If you’re familiar with Jane Austen, you might know that one criticism of her writing is that her stories lack any sort of commentary or broader view of what were the contemporary issues of her time. I disagree with this criticism. In Pride and Prejudice, for instance, the presence of a troop of soldiers in the Bennett family’s hometown is a major matchmaking plot point, so we got a peek into how wartime impacted regular people in their everyday lives. In my opinion, Jane Austen was writing what she knew and remaining true to the genre of novels she wrote, while giving a subtle nod to larger, more systemic concerns.
Abilene’s body was found at the cross-section of four overlapping law enforcement jurisdictions—it was everyone’s problem, so it was no one’s problem. Whether you see it as a loss of innocence issue or a social justice issue, it’s a tragedy for the Shaw family.
I feel similarly about how BJ Novak handles social justice issues in Vengeance. It would be disingenuous to craft a story about someone dying from drug overdose without touching on concerns such as the role of big pharma in public health, problems within the criminal justice system, and drug trafficking. I for one love how BJ Novak handled these issues because they are definitely in the film, but Novak never loses sight of the story he’s trying to tell about the growth of a singular man, just like Jane Austen never strays from writing a romance. It feels like Austen and Novak know how to stay in their lane, so I am going to do the same and not cover social justice issues in this post. There are other filmmakers who have centered their work around these topics, so I will save my thoughts for one of their movies.
resources & final thoughts
Loss of innocence plays out well on-screen, so there’s no shortage of cinema in this area. One of my favorites is Shadow of a Doubt, as well as the modern interpretation of the same story, Stoker. I also love Jojo Rabbit, the Barbie movie, and The Matrix for this theme (the latter I’d love to write about at some point).
And here are some additional resources and exploration connected to today’s post:
The best resource I’ve ever seen about modern dating and relationships is, hands-down, Todd Baratz’s Instagram.
Economic Sociology Pt. 1 from the podcast Ologies addresses ways we make decisions that, to my ears, feels very much connected to regret
The List by Yomi Adegoke is a mystery novel that hits on the topics of both loss of innocence and modern dating culture
Thank you for reading! I’m Trina, and I’m a therapist in Texas. I wrote this post myself using my own words and ideas. I used AI to help me optimize titles, headings, keywords, and meta descriptions for SEO purposes. AI also gave me some tips on how to share this post on social media. I will always let you know if/when/how I use AI in my blog posts.
If you’re in Texas and looking for a therapist, give me a shout. I’d love to learn more about you and your story.
