Ah, I thought about five minutes after the film ended, so THAT'S why they put a picture of the World Trade Centre attack on the cover! It's not immediately clear why, but I appreciated being allowed by the director to puzzle it out on my own. I suspect that's the whole point of this film?
There's almost no mention of 9/11 in 'Sorry Haters', a fact that I appreciate, because I watch movies for the drama and not for the cold, hard facts. But in the tradition of all great dramas, the makers of 'Sorry Haters' have managed to make a total fiction tell us some hard truths about 9/11.
This story is one big metaphor for the dynamics between the West and Middle East. The West is embodied by Phoebe and the Middle East, by Ashade. On the one hand, Phoebe goes out of her way to stir sh*t because she's brimming with inner tension. It turns out that she probably got this way from a lifetime of being casually tormented by people around her who got what she wanted to get, but was too 'civil' to fight for. Even Phoebe's so called best friend snipes, "I wasn't an accountant, I was even WORSE: a sales rep!" (Oh how nice Philly, you shouldn't have!) The hyper-successful and outgoing Philly practically oozes a constant stream of subtle insults like this, all meant to put Phoebe in her place. Whether she's doing it consciously or not is another question. It's obviously a very ingrained habit, though.
Having been forced to compete brutally with her peers, and even her best friend, Phoebe seemingly doesn't know how to stop until she's clawed her way to the top of some sh*t pile, somewhere in the city. And she's willing to go to desperate measures to do that. It looks like all that competitive spirit has wiped out any trace of sympathy or humanity in her. It's The American Dream gone oh-so wrong... as it increasingly tends to do, these days.
I kept asking myself throughout the film why Phoebe was so bonkers: it was her single minded obsession with, 'I want what she has'. It does make you ask questions about how much you really need any of the things you want.
There's a pretty clear connection between the rise of Islamic terrorism and the invasions of the Middle Eastern by Russia, the U.S., U.K and France over the last few decades. Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq were once more progressive places than they are before the West started to get antsy about how much oil they were sitting on (or near). Every time we withdraw our troops, having failed, yet another chunk of Middle Eastern progress crumbles away for good. And the likes of ISIL and the Taliban spring up to funnel people's anger and pain into fundamentalism or civil war. Or terrorism. Of course, the problem could be solved (or at least lessened) if the West would just STOP messing about in the Middle East, but why do that when the weapons industry's making a killing from it all too...?
That's not to excuse terrorism - one attack is as bad as the other - but Western nations do like to play the innocent victim even as they go on doing things that they KNOW will add fuel the terrorists' fire.
The western world's compulsion to invade and manipulate the Middle East to enhance its own bank portfolios is very clearly mirrored in Phoebe's compulsion to violate Ashade's personal boundaries. She infiltrates his mind and controls him for the sake of saving her ego. It's insane but she's just like some of the more cutthroat businessmen I've met. She goes to radical extremes because she's bored with her routine, and exists in social isolation. The one-track mind she possesses isn't inherited, it's earned, and the business she works in rewards it.
Just like the Western world, Phoebe seems to 'have it all' but having it all's not enough. She's obviously just broken from living in her cut-throat object-obsessed world for so long. Again, the American supermalls full of dead eyed shoppers come to mind. (Sorry Haters might be interesting companion film for Dawn of the Dead or American Psycho for that reason!).
I also felt that Phoebe's character was strangely sympathetic... which is a real feat considering her actions. Bravo to Ms. Penn for sustaining that balancing act. Most western people will have felt as enraged about the unfairness of capitalism at some point, so it would have been bad to alienate all those people by making her too 'evil'. Many other actresses would have taken an easier route, but Penn keeps you guessing and wondering whether you should take her side.
I agree with the other reviewers who commented that Ashade is a little bit TOO good, though. After all, fundamentalist forms of Islam have always existed and have almost always been quite hostile toward women. It would be silly to dichotomize the Muslims as wonderfully good & pure people, just as it would have been a bit silly to turn Phoebe into a purely heartless killing machine. No one is totally good or evil. So as far as a realistic drama goes, it's a bit of a push... BUT seeing as this is a metaphorical drama, it worked out okay.
While the film opens on a city that's clearly still a bit edgy after 9/11, the ensuing tale neatly answers the question of who planted the insane IDEA of 9/11 in the minds of terrorists in the first place. Maybe it was someone like Phoebe who took "my family, my whole world" away from a stranger. Most acts of war and terror are like that, when you think of it - they're all just an externalization of the sound a mind makes when it pops.
There's almost no mention of 9/11 in 'Sorry Haters', a fact that I appreciate, because I watch movies for the drama and not for the cold, hard facts. But in the tradition of all great dramas, the makers of 'Sorry Haters' have managed to make a total fiction tell us some hard truths about 9/11.
This story is one big metaphor for the dynamics between the West and Middle East. The West is embodied by Phoebe and the Middle East, by Ashade. On the one hand, Phoebe goes out of her way to stir sh*t because she's brimming with inner tension. It turns out that she probably got this way from a lifetime of being casually tormented by people around her who got what she wanted to get, but was too 'civil' to fight for. Even Phoebe's so called best friend snipes, "I wasn't an accountant, I was even WORSE: a sales rep!" (Oh how nice Philly, you shouldn't have!) The hyper-successful and outgoing Philly practically oozes a constant stream of subtle insults like this, all meant to put Phoebe in her place. Whether she's doing it consciously or not is another question. It's obviously a very ingrained habit, though.
Having been forced to compete brutally with her peers, and even her best friend, Phoebe seemingly doesn't know how to stop until she's clawed her way to the top of some sh*t pile, somewhere in the city. And she's willing to go to desperate measures to do that. It looks like all that competitive spirit has wiped out any trace of sympathy or humanity in her. It's The American Dream gone oh-so wrong... as it increasingly tends to do, these days.
I kept asking myself throughout the film why Phoebe was so bonkers: it was her single minded obsession with, 'I want what she has'. It does make you ask questions about how much you really need any of the things you want.
There's a pretty clear connection between the rise of Islamic terrorism and the invasions of the Middle Eastern by Russia, the U.S., U.K and France over the last few decades. Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq were once more progressive places than they are before the West started to get antsy about how much oil they were sitting on (or near). Every time we withdraw our troops, having failed, yet another chunk of Middle Eastern progress crumbles away for good. And the likes of ISIL and the Taliban spring up to funnel people's anger and pain into fundamentalism or civil war. Or terrorism. Of course, the problem could be solved (or at least lessened) if the West would just STOP messing about in the Middle East, but why do that when the weapons industry's making a killing from it all too...?
That's not to excuse terrorism - one attack is as bad as the other - but Western nations do like to play the innocent victim even as they go on doing things that they KNOW will add fuel the terrorists' fire.
The western world's compulsion to invade and manipulate the Middle East to enhance its own bank portfolios is very clearly mirrored in Phoebe's compulsion to violate Ashade's personal boundaries. She infiltrates his mind and controls him for the sake of saving her ego. It's insane but she's just like some of the more cutthroat businessmen I've met. She goes to radical extremes because she's bored with her routine, and exists in social isolation. The one-track mind she possesses isn't inherited, it's earned, and the business she works in rewards it.
Just like the Western world, Phoebe seems to 'have it all' but having it all's not enough. She's obviously just broken from living in her cut-throat object-obsessed world for so long. Again, the American supermalls full of dead eyed shoppers come to mind. (Sorry Haters might be interesting companion film for Dawn of the Dead or American Psycho for that reason!).
I also felt that Phoebe's character was strangely sympathetic... which is a real feat considering her actions. Bravo to Ms. Penn for sustaining that balancing act. Most western people will have felt as enraged about the unfairness of capitalism at some point, so it would have been bad to alienate all those people by making her too 'evil'. Many other actresses would have taken an easier route, but Penn keeps you guessing and wondering whether you should take her side.
I agree with the other reviewers who commented that Ashade is a little bit TOO good, though. After all, fundamentalist forms of Islam have always existed and have almost always been quite hostile toward women. It would be silly to dichotomize the Muslims as wonderfully good & pure people, just as it would have been a bit silly to turn Phoebe into a purely heartless killing machine. No one is totally good or evil. So as far as a realistic drama goes, it's a bit of a push... BUT seeing as this is a metaphorical drama, it worked out okay.
While the film opens on a city that's clearly still a bit edgy after 9/11, the ensuing tale neatly answers the question of who planted the insane IDEA of 9/11 in the minds of terrorists in the first place. Maybe it was someone like Phoebe who took "my family, my whole world" away from a stranger. Most acts of war and terror are like that, when you think of it - they're all just an externalization of the sound a mind makes when it pops.