But is it outrage-worthy? I’d have to say no. Is Lane’s review, as Wong put it, gross? Yep. So I was especially mad when I saw that New Yorker film critic Anthony Lane, in a now-notorious review, sexualized that heart-to-heart between the two women by making up a male viewer (a possible stand-in for the critic) who tries to suppress his arousal by “rest his cooling soda firmly in his lap” and “tr very hard to think of algebra” until his failure results in “flying popcorn.” Even if viewers, by this point in the movie, may have reason not to trust Evelyn, the scene is moving: The characters’ connection is real, if compromised, and it’s all too rare to see adult female friendship valorized in children’s movies-a genre that for decades has villainized older women.
The two middle-age women share an exhausted but passionate moment on a late night at the office, as they debate what’s more important-making things or marketing them?-and discuss their dreams and how to achieve them.
For the record, Elastigirl, with her soccer-mom bob, thicc badonk, and take-charge demeanor, looks nothing like the shy, waiflike Anastasia Steele.Īnd yet that scene is nowhere near as poignant as the one between Elastigirl and her boss, Evelyn Deavor, the inventor who designs all her company’s technology while her brother turns it into profit.
