The Misfits

A painfully sensitive film, a story about the ways we stop seeing each other, this woman, an object of desire, capable of empathetic connection with every creature around her, this Mars and Venus narrative about the way things fall apart, about the things we buy into because everybody else does, about the beauty of those who stand outside that circle no matter what; a story about men and women, how they are together, how they are alone, and what impresses you most, it’s not Miller’s understanding of men, which many male writers articulate well, but it’s his hard to parallel understanding of women. Monroe, out of shape even by the standards of her time, still beautiful, glowing, all the things she’s supposed to embody, mystery and innocence, clear in her character, clear through her eyes, this fractured love story false only in the hope you feel at the end.