Joyland

i absolutely love this movie for its performances and how beautifully its made but it doesn't sit right with me that biba the trans woman character is used almost just as a plot device for haider's self discovery, to the point of fetishising her rather than giving her full narrative agency. i mean, where does she go? i see that the three main characters all seem equally at fault, purely because of their circumstances, but the story doesn't seem to explicitly foreground it (they do, but not very convincingly), leaving it half-baked. do the characters recognise that or not? that ambiguity is risky especially with themes like infidelity (also personally for me infidelity is such an overseen plot point) i feel sad that despite their such great performances, i end up caring more for mumtaz than haider or biba, even though her arc isn't fleshed out fully