Alice’s neighbor Bunny shows up and reveals that she knows they’re living in a simulation. ![]() That’s the tricky thing about the patriarchy: It often disguises itself as domestic bliss.Īlice then accidentally kills Jack. He wishes that he never had to leave the simulation himself, but he does so he can go to a job in the outside world every day and fund his creepy daydream.Īlice screams that she chose her so-called miserable life, and that she enjoyed it. She confronts Jack, and he explains that he made this choice because she was miserable in the outside world working long hours in a hospital. When Alice returns “home”-well, to her 1950s simulation home-she flinches as she kisses Jack, and more real-world recollections flood in. Jack signs up himself and Alice, without Alice’s consent. Nor is she even necessarily the man’s partner-she can be just some random woman that the man presumably…kidnaps? Yikes. The woman, it should be noted, doesn’t consent to the virtual reality experience. While listening to a creepy podcast with men’s rights activist vibes, Jack hears about special VR technology invented by Frank that allows a man and the woman of his choosing to be plugged into a ’50s-style universe. The movie attempts to up Jack’s creep-factor in these scenes by giving Harry Styles very un-Harry Styles-like hair and clothes. He doesn’t particularly like how much Alice works or that she’s the breadwinner in their relationship. Jack is her partner in that universe too. ![]() She lives in a dreary city apartment and works terrible hours. It turns out that she is, in reality, a doctor, not a housewife. While lying on the table, Alice accesses memories of her real life. The electroshock therapy doesn’t go as planned. The goons try to reprogram her through electroshock therapy. Jack pretends he is going to run away with Alice but instead sets her up to be kidnapped by a group of men and bemoans his own bad fortune as she’s dragged away. But he departs the party before Alice can finish her line of questioning, leaving Alice to argue with the spineless Jack. After a crackling dinner party showdown, Frank all but admits to Alice that he’s manipulating the people of Victory. In a series of increasingly desperate episodes, she confronts her husband, her neighbor and confidante Bunny (Wilde), and Frank. She reawakens in bed and spends the rest of the movie trying to unravel the mystery. (These women are performing for men, if that imagery wasn’t obvious enough.) She approaches the building and, when she touches it, sees a bunch of trippy images, including black-and-white dream-like sequences of Busby Berkeley-style dancers. ![]() Instead, she finds the bunker where all the men work. We never see Margaret again.Īround this time, Alice sees a plane crash in the desert and wanders into forbidden territory to find it. Margaret then slices her throat open in front of Alice, seemingly killing herself, though a doctor tells Alice that Margaret recovered. But Margaret says the company took away her son as punishment for uncovering whatever mystery she found. The company tells the town that the son died in the desert, further reinforcing the idea that wandering off is dangerous. The piece is dedicated to the memory of Michael Friedman.Things go sideways when one of Alice’s friends, Margaret (KiKi Layne), wanders into the desert after her child and claims she saw something terrible there. It was performed by the Vocális Chamber Choir at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Buffalo, NY, in June 2019 with James Burritt conducting. This performance is the premiere of the choral version. "When I Am Dead" was premiered in an arrangement for soprano and harpsichord by the Buffalo Chamber Players in April 2018 following a performance of the Purcell aria. Purcell’s aria begins, “When I am laid in earth” Rossetti’s poem begins, “When I am dead.” Purcell ends with “Remember me, but ah, forget my fate” Rossetti’s poem ends, “Haply I may remember and haply may forget.” To highlight the textual similarities, there are melodic and rhythmic connections between the two pieces of music. ![]() "When I Am Dead, My Dearest" is meant to be a partner piece to Dido’s Lament from Henry Purcell’s opera, Dido and Aeneas.
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