I Want to be Blake Lively

Yes, she is pretty and yes, she has a great body the likes of which I only dreamed of even when I was her age... but I really want to be Blake Lively because she has sex with Tim Riggins, I mean Taylor Kitsch, in the opening scene of Savages.

And then, soon after, with the adorable Aaron Johnson. And both are okay with it. It all seems pretty idyllic.

Okay, correction, I only want to be Blake Lively during the first 10 minutes of the movie. And not just because of all the terrible things that happen later. I'd only want to be her for a short time, even if things had continued calmly.

I think my favorite line of this movie went something like: they love each other more than they love you, otherwise why would they share you?

And that, to me, was kind of the crux of her story and why her character, O, was an intereresting choice as a narrator. She's a pawn, a bystander, a prop in her own life. Almost a way for the two men to express their love for each other physically without,  you know, actually having sex themselves. Ultimately this movie is a bromance. A story about two very different heterosexual men who love each other and complement each other, and ultimately both need to change to survive.

One could say that it's a story about them saving O, their mutual girlfriend, but really it's about them saving their business, saving their friendship, and saving their own lives. I keep changing my mind about who the real protagonist of this story was. Watching it, I thought the Aaron Johnson character, because he changed the most. But in many ways, watching his friend change, changed the Taylor Kitsch character too. It's almost like together they made one man, which maybe was the point of the story. That, and the not-so-subtle message that "savagery" is subjective, in the eye of the beholder. Both sides dismiss the other as, "Savages" more than once. I'm frankly still thinking about this movie and need to have drinks with Sinead to discuss, but in spite of all the violence, the story has a very romantic, almost sentimental feel to it.

Slightly spoilerish paragraph: The film has two endings. And I was rolling my eyes a tiny bit during the first ending. Or more accurate perhaps, I was thinking, "Really? Really? After putting me through all this, you're going to go all Romeo and Juliet on me???" But then we realize that's not the ending, it's only the way the very romantic and naive O wanted it to end, then the movie veers into a more Hollywood typical ending for this kind of story.

Bottom line: I liked this movie. Did I think it was the best movie I've ever seen? No. Will I see it again at some point? Definitely. Just to analyze it, mind you, not to see shots of Taylor Kitsch's ass and imagine I'm Blake Lively. Honest.