Toxic movie - spoiler filled thread....- Page 8

I really appreciate this thread ... it shows that there are movies who are worth to take a closer and deeper look despite a not so compelling surface

Originally posted by: mahiwayyy

https://x.com/i/status/2094087621425393846

one more review I liked which analyse raya

There was this scene where while the grand confrontation with Ticket...Raya asked Ticket to just kill him....kill him and liberate him from the life that he was no longer able to bear with the guilt and memories...

Raya wasn't really afraid of dying; he was afraid of having to live with himself.

You know My Grandfather in his last days used to recall his entire life and life choices...

He used to say, "As life gets quieter, there are fewer distractions from the past. The people are gone, the battles are over, the noise fades, and what remains is memory."

I remembered my grandfather's words at that moment...

That's what makes Raya's journey so haunting.

His entire life is built around running from himself...through power, violence, women, business, alcohol, even another identity.

But eventually, there is nowhere left to run.

The most terrifying punishment isn't death. It's surviving long enough to sit completely alone with yourself to remember everything...

You begin revisiting the choices you made,the people you hurt, the moments you could have handled differently, the words you never said, the people you failed to protect. And unlike physical pain, there is no medicine for that kind of remembering...

Originally posted by: mahiwayyy

https://x.com/i/status/2094046019961188523

Ohh, Raya!!!

There are characters whom you just want to enter the screen for, sit next to them and give them a really tight hug.

And then there is Raya...where even though you want to hug him, you are also totally terrified of what his unhinged reaction to that hug might be....and decide to stay away..😭

Because he is all contradictions. Fierce yet vulnerable. Possessive yet deeply loving. Terrifying yet strangely heartbreaking. A man who feels everything with almost frightening intensity, but never quite learned how to love without turning love into protection, control or power

You look at him and see this fiercely intense, possessive, dangerous man, and yet somewhere underneath all that anger and power is someone who is just... deeply wounded...who values emotions and guilt-ridden for everyone and everything...

What a beautifully damaged, deeply flawed, frightening, frustrating, dangerously fascinating character....

Also Rebecca is interesting...

I read her as someone who had grown up with privilege and therefore had a very different understanding of relationships. She was used to having things go her way, and with Raya too, there is an element of wanting to possess him rather than truly understand him.

For Raya, the equation is different. His connection with Rebecca is tied to wish of Ganga, power, security and ambition. There may be attraction and physical desire, but it doesn't have the emotional surrender that exists with Nadia. With Rebecca, Raya can remain the powerful Raya. With Nadia, he becomes vulnerable.

That's why I find the contrast so fascinating.

Rebecca wants to have Raya. Nadia wants to know Raya.

And Raya himself seems to understand that difference. That's why there is a certain guilt around Rebecca once Nadia enters his life because he knows, somewhere inside, that whatever he shares with Rebecca cannot compare to what he feels for Nadia. It's not guilt because he had betrayed some great love.It's guilt because he knew the truth about his own heart.

I don't think Rebecca is simply a villain, though. She is selfish, entitled and possessive, yes, but Rebecca didn't really love Raya either. Their relationship is built much more around attraction, possession, power and what Raya represents to her.Rebecca wanted Raya as the powerful man the dangerous, ambitious figure she can have beside her. There is very little sense that she truly tries to understand the wounded person underneath him.

And Raya's equation with her is equally transactional. She is connected to his ambition, his position and Ganga's vision for his future.

That's why Nadia changed everything....

Nadia doesn't want the gangster, the empire or the status. She wants the man. She sees the darkness and still asks him to touch her with love, not power.

Rebecca already knew that Raya didn't love her, and she was apparently comfortable with that arrangement.She asked Raya, " Is it possible for someone like you to love someone" and Raya had denied...

That's what she believed..

Raya was useful to her world, she was attracted to his persona , power and she believed he was fundamentally incapable of emotional love. So Nadia initially didn't threaten her.

The turning point was realizing Nadia wasn't merely a physical distraction.

Raya had actually fallen in love.And that changed everything.

Because Rebecca could accept “Raya doesn't love me.” What she couldn't accept was “Raya is capable of love, and he loves someone else.”

That's why the confrontation before the wedding becomes so powerful. Raya's guilt-ridden expression says almost everything.

When he tells her “Betrayal in the real world is better than love and loyalty in delusion.”

He was almost acknowledging that what exists between him and Nadia is real, while whatever future he is supposed to have with Rebecca is built on an illusion.

And Rebecca still didn't refuse to marry.That would have made a lot of things easier & prevented the destruction that took place later .. Rebecca didn't refuse to take a place that wasn't genuinely hers.

Rebecca wants to possess Raya.Nadia wants to reach him.

And perhaps that's why Raya can have a life with Rebecca, but he can only truly be himself with Nadia.

One scene I remembered ....

Ganga asked Raya, almost in frustration, "What is there in her that you like her so much?" And Raya's answer isn't about Nadia's beauty, her personality, or even what she does for him.

He says, essentially:

"I like the version of myself I became with her."

And that is devastatingly beautiful.🥹

Because Raya is someone who has spent his entire life carrying guilt. He knows what he is. He knows he is violent, possessive, controlling. He knows the damage he causes. There is this constant sense that he doesn't particularly like the man he has become.

Then Nadia comes along.And suddenly, Raya sees himself differently.

With her, he isn't only the gangster. He isn't only the protector. He isn't the man who has to conquer, threaten and control.

He can be tender. He can be playful. He can be vulnerable. He can desire without possessing. He can simply exist.

And most importantly....he likes himself there.

That, to me, is much bigger than "Nadia makes Raya happy."

She gives him something far more fundamental:self-acceptance, even if only temporarily.

That's why his attachment to Nadia feels almost instinctive. He isn't merely addicted to her. He is addicted to who he gets to be around her.

And perhaps that is why losing her is so devastating.

Because when Raya loses Nadia, he isn't just losing the woman he loves.He is losing the version of himself that he was finally learning to love.

And that makes Ganga's question so poignant.

She wants to know:..What does this woman have that has affected you this deeply?

And Raya's answer is almost:

"She showed me that I am capable of being someone I don't hate."

That's enormous.

Because Nadia doesn't "fix" Raya.She doesn't magically make him a good man.She simply creates an environment where another side of him can exist.

And that is why her demand "touch me with love, not with power" fits so perfectly into their relationship.

She isn't asking Raya to become weaker.She's teaching him that he doesn't have to use the language of power with someone he loves.

And for perhaps the first time in his life, Raya discovers:

I can be powerful without being cruel.I can love without possessing.I can be vulnerable without becoming weak.

I can be myself and actually like that man.

So yes, that one line says almost everything.

Raya spent his life trying to become a man the world would fear.Nadia made him discover a man he himself could finally like or perhaps love.

And honestly, that's why their love story hurts so much. 💔because, for a little while, you can see how happy they could have been if they had survived everything....