what the film vengeance teaches us about grief & relationships
vengeance film analysis: grief & letting go of being right
Welcome to my second installment of my discussion of the film Vengeance, directed by BJ Novak. The first post included a synopsis–and it was also my first blog post ever, so I also wrote about why I decided to write about movies and other media. If either of those things interest you, check out my last blog post.
As I will be continuing my discussion of the same movie, just a quick reminder that spoilers are up ahead. And here’s a refresh of some of the people in the film who have already been introduced:
Ben Manalowitz – writer/podcaster from NYC
Abilene Shaw – deceased, former hook-up of Ben
Abilene Shaw’s family (mother Sharon, older brother Ty, younger sisters KC and Paris, much younger brother Mason, grandmother Granny Shaw) – hosting Ben in Texas, podcast interviewees, believe Ben is Abilene’s longtime boyfriend
In this post I will be discussing grief as well as what it looks like to let go of the need to be right through the lens of this film. Here we go!
trigger warnings
The film Vengeance touches on issues of addiction, overdose, and death. Please take care as you read my commentary in this post.
letting go of the need to be right in relationships
reciprocity: the heart of connection
As a relationship therapist, one my all-time favorite concepts is reciprocity. I use this term often with my clients when we discuss situations that provoke vulnerability in their relationships. In a therapeutic context, reciprocity is about our willingness to be impacted by someone else, and visa versa: to own that we have an impact on others.
It seems simple enough on its surface. Obviously, yeah, sure. You have a relationship with someone and you impact each other. But allowing yourself to be impacted by another person means accepting the possibility of change, which ultimately means letting go of the need to be right. It’s hardly simple.
ben’s relationally disconnected pitch
In Ben’s original podcast pitch to his producer, Eloise, he says that Ty Shaw, and others like him, create myths and conspiracies to explain what they cannot accept. Ty cannot accept that his sister died of a drug overdose, so he creates a fictitious murderer in order to cast himself as a hero for avenging her death. “Because the truth is too hard to accept,” says Ben. From this pitch, there are two layers of Ben’s character development as he grows into who he will become.
Initially Ben is incredulous that Abilene’s death could be anything other than a straight-forward overdose. Then he learns the particulars of where her body was found. The young locals often party in an isolated oil field, parties where “everybody goes, nobody went.” Abilene’s body was found almost two miles away from the party in a field known as “The After Party.”
It’s the place where people who have overdosed are taken–perhaps to die, perhaps to be found by emergency services–so that their bodies are not found at the party itself. Someone has to take you to The After Party. You don’t go there on your own, and you don’t go there by choice. It has no phone service, and it exists in a limbo where no law enforcement body will claim it as within their jurisdiction.
fragile, superficial growth
It is this information that prompts Ben to question whether he was wrong about the circumstances of Abilene’s death, and he starts to wonder whether there is someone responsible. That he is willing to re-examine his original assessment is the first layer of his growth. It’s worth recognizing that he chose not to dig in his heels and was instead open to seeing the tragedy differently.
But I would argue that continuing to see a complex situation through the lens of who is right and who is wrong is superficial growth, no matter how willing you are to change your mind. It’s fragile growth because there’s always the possibility that more data will come along, and you’ll be able to say “I was right all along,” which is exactly what happens to Ben in this film.
“The cost of concession–and victory–is high. And our relationship is what pays the price.”
Most of us know what it’s like to be caught in the who’s right/who’s wrong loop. We bicker about which of us has a better system about keeping the house clean, or there’s a family riff over who gets to decide the destination of the next family vacation. We vent about our siblings and partners in a way that tries to convince listeners that our telling of the story is the accurate one. Every once in a while, the opposition comes to see things our way. And sometimes we are forced to be humbled into seeing the error of our viewpoint. So one of you is...what? The loser? In the moment, it feels critically important that our view is accepted as objective truth, which means the cost of concession–and victory–is high. And our relationship is what pays the price.
allowing ourselves to be changed
When the Shaw family acknowledges that Abilene is a known drug-user, Ben reacts with outrage at the feeling that they have knowingly deceived him. It is after this confrontation–wherein the family shares their opinion about Abby being more than her addiction, which I discussed in my last post–that Ben moves into the second layer of his narrative arc.
In the final podcast reflection he records for his producer he says, “You were right, Eloise. I was the story. A self-absorbed, know-it-all, thinks he’s going to figure out the meaning of America, and all he learns is how empty he is. I was the one living a myth. They say you regret the things you don’t do. I didn’t love. I have no story. I guess that’s the story. I am the story, and the story sucks.”
When it looks like he has sacrificed his connection to the Shaw family on the altar of rightness, finally Ben allows this family to truly make an impact on him. He experiences reciprocity, which is the alternative to a right/wrong dichotomy. Instead of changing his mind, he allows himself to be changed.
choosing connection over division
“choosing connection is a radical choice given our divided culture”
Letting go of the need to be right does not mean letting go of what is important to us, it means letting go of the disconnection of division. It means focusing on understanding others and being understood, which is at the heart of connection. And choosing connection is a radical choice given our divided culture.
Mason, Abilene’s youngest sibling, slept on her floor because he was afraid of ghosts. He continues the tradition with Ben, who is using Abilene’s bedroom as the guest room. Ben comes to be an older brother figure for Mason.
There is one scene in which Ben uses a Shaw family adage, coined by Abilene, to express the beginning of his farewell to Mason, the youngest Shaw sibling. “I love you mucho,” Ben says. In one of the early scenes of Vengeance, we watch Ben and his friend John discussing their preferred manner of dating. John says, “I don’t ever wanna go past knowing what someone’s parents do for a living. If I know what someone’s parents do for a living, I’ve hung too long.” Ben responds “Right. Or like siblings. Why does anyone wanna know about your siblings?”
What an incredible transformation for Ben. From lack of interest in even knowing whether a romantic interest has siblings to “I love you mucho.”
grief’s portrayal on screen
grief looks different for everyone
In a movie framed around a brother’s desire to avenge his sister’s death, it would be strange not to include grief as one of the central issues. As a personal disclosure, I have also lost a sibling, and the memory of those frenetic, terrible weeks and months after my brother’s death aren’t what I see reflected in the Shaw family. They seem much more capable of outward functioning and faking normalcy than I was. The reason I’m including grief as a major issue in this film despite my lack of feeling about it is just that: the Shaw family’s experience wasn’t mine. And my detachment feels notable to me.
Grief, famously, is different for everyone. It makes you feel pretty crazy–which I say from personal experience and from what friends, loved ones, and clients have told me about their experience of grief. So yeah. I can see how, in a state of grief, this family is hyper-focused on the idea of exacting justice on an unknown killer. They’re in unimaginable pain, of course they are looking for something–anything–to provide relief. Ty himself says that grief is likely the reason he wanted Ben to investigate Abilene’s death with him, despite being well aware she was actively using opiates.
subtle grief is still grief
Outside of Abilene’s funeral, there aren’t many scenes pulling at the heartstrings of loss, and it’s not because the actors miss the mark. You just have to really pay attention. In one of my favorite scenes, Abilene’s teenage sister, Kansas City (or KC), comes to Ben alone. “Do you see my phone? How it’s like, cracked,” she says. “It makes me look the way that I feel.” No crying, no further discussion, then she quickly leaves the room.
KC holds her cell phone, a cracked screen over her face
Sometimes when we’re grieving, we run out of tears, but we still desperately need people to know. I re-watched this movie a couple of times in order to write about it, and it wasn’t until my third watch that this scene made an impact. Its subtlety felt powerful when it finally hit me.
grief prompts unexpected choices
The premise of this entire film could seem a bit far-fetched because it’s unusual to welcome a total stranger into your home for an indeterminate amount of time. But add grief into the picture, and I could actually see this situation unfolding in real life. When Ben asks to stay longer to record the podcast, Abilene’s mother, Sharon, tells Ben “We have this empty seat at the table, we can use all the distraction we can get.”
My normal, everyday self can’t imagine how strange it would be to have Ben in my home. By night, he’s sleeping in my dead sibling’s room next to me. By day, he’s following me around with a microphone, asking me an endless stream of questions about the trivialities of my life. But the version of me a week after my brother’s funeral when the casseroles stopped showing up–she probably would have begged Ben to stick around. I would have been incredibly vulnerable to someone wanting to make a podcast about my grief, even if it made me look like a fool.
closing thoughts on grief & relationships
Writing this post felt heavy, more so than writing about loving someone through their addiction for some reason. Re-visiting my own grief experience obviously plays into that feeling, but honestly writing about letting go of being right hit me much harder. I think it’s because I’ve seen so many people I love harm each other this way. It’s hard to watch. It makes me so incredibly sad that our culture has gifted us deeply entrenched, deeply false, wisdom about the importance of never backing down. It makes me want to go text my friends and family to tell them I love them. Here’s to backing down and letting things go.
“our culture has gifted us deeply entrenched, deeply false, wisdom about the importance of never backing down”
resources for grief & letting go
I have one remaining post in this series of reflections on the film Vengeance, which I will share next week. I’ll discuss the theme of loss of innocence, which will be the spoilery-est post of them all. I hope you’ll join me then! In the meantime, here are some resources and related media that came to mind for me this week:
SAMHSA for substance abuse and mental health support, including grief and bereavement
Option B by Sheryl Sandberg for those trying to wade through grief
Hidden Brain episode You 2.0: What is Your Life For? for those looking for meaning in the aftermath of loss
The film Celeste & Jesse Forever explores the long-term relational impact of needing to be right
The essay “Devil’s Bait,” published in the book The Empathy Exams, discusses offering validation to people who suffer from illnesses without objective evidence, rather than trying to prove they do not suffer from an illness
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.
