Crimson Peak is a visually stunning film that tackles the narrative of abuse in a way that allows the watcher to feel disgust and awe all at once.
Directed by acclaimed Guillermo del Toro and written by del Toro and Mathew Robbins, this Gothic Romance Classic plays on themes of ghosts, death, and ambition. Set in Victorian era England, Edith Cushing (Mia Wasikowska) is a ghost-haunted writer attempting to get her works published. Mr. Thomas Sharpe (Tom Hiddleston) and his sister Lucille (Jessica Chastain) are also trying to start a business of their own involving the ore of their family estate. Through a series of sorrowful and romantic events, Edith and Thomas Sharpe are joined in marriage, but it is anything but happily ever after.
Costumes As Character
The costuming was so incredibly intentional.
Lucille is often dressed in very fine clothes of a crimson color, but they are a few years behind the current times. It’s implied that these were the dresses of their mother, which would make sense, as that would be the last time that they would have seen real wealth.
It’s equally shown in the color pallets and silhouette chosen for either woman. Edith wears sunny, bright colors that reflect her joy and childlike naivety, as Lucille is dressed in dark, heavy, restricting clothing that closely resembles the life she has lived and still carries through her day to day.
Throughout the narrative, as Edith begins to lose herself in the draining arrangement of her marriage, her clothes begin to change too, incorporating less silk in favor of dark velvets.
The only time we ever see Lucille in loose clothing is when she is no longer hiding her intentions from Edith.
In the fight at the end, each woman is left bare in their underclothes with their hair undone. Each represents an obstacle to be overcome.
The almost fanciful beauty of this movie, in every way, caters to the Gothic Romance genre, the animated cgi, and the over-the-top costuming, creating this baroque-esque vibe. Every shot feels like a painting.
Two Sides of the Coin
Lucille and Edith represent two sides of the same coin. One where ambitions are not only nurtured and loved, but also have the financial gains to realize such kindness, and the other, in which a woman’s power comes from her ability to steal, manipulate, and yes, sometimes murder.
Lucille is a textbook morally grey character. She grew up in a very abusive household alongside Thomas, and was expected to take care for him. She lives in a time where a woman’s only means of money and power comes from the men around her, and she harbors dark, harmful urges that the time was not medically equipped to handle.
The only real thing she had going for her was her title, and even then, it would be up for grabs the moment her brother found a wife. She is not an outlier of her time; she is a product of it.
That isn’t to say that she was correct in her actions. Not every woman of that time was a murderess with a penchant for incest, but given her history, it isn’t some anomaly that that is how she turned out.
Edith, on the other hand, was given everything that Lucille wasn’t. A nurturing childhood and the financial means to follow her passions through her loving and rich parents. She has strong opinions that she has the safety to voice them. She gets to live in a world where her biggest problem is that her handwriting is too feminine.
They even have the same dark tendencies. How they were nurtured is the literal point of the movie.
Resentment
This story is a perfect representation of resentment. Lucille finds no real sympathy for the women she kills because all of them came from everything she didn’t. In the beginning, it feels like she is speaking to joy itself, asking, “Why was I less deserving?” to the end when she metaphorically screams, “I will lick their joy off the knife I stab them with.”
She feels nothing for her victims because they have already gotten to experience the life she was robbed of. Like allowing a beef cow to have a pasture before slaughter.
Here we go again.
I have said before that I don’t like rape scenes as a plot device, and that is still true; however, like the genre of horror itself, grey is the color of all commentary.
I do not like rape as a shock and awe plot device when used to make you feel gross without any other use to the story. This is not that.
PTSD
This is a PTSD and abuse story and showcasing just how far the abuse has rooted was not a frivolous decision.
Edith finding the siblings like that, demonstrated something that she was already becoming aware of. That the darkness that haunted Thomas and Lucille went deeper than mere protectiveness and a bad parental figure.
Even the position she found them in was a perfect depiction of the dynamic that was hosted between them. Tomas had little control over the situation he was in, and it wasn’t until he realized they were being watched did he understand the amount of danger Edith was in.
However, I have seen it argued that the scene isn’t “rape” but a consensual relationship between two adults. The idea of either word rape or consent don’t take into account the complexities of relationships where grooming has obviously taken place.
If you were to ask any of the characters what the relationship between the siblings was, every one of them would likely give a different answer and none would be completely wrong. Yes, adults were the ones engaging, but at the start, it would have been child and child, in which neither could consent to the acts they were partaking in. Of course, Lucille was older and they were both being subjected to severe abuse at the whims of their mother, but that doesn’t make her any less a child when it happened.
All I am going to say is, it was an active choice, not some one off shock value trick. That is the difference.
Conclusion
This is a near-perfect media in my book. It’s a gorgeous PTSD story with ghosts and beautiful costumes and all of the gothic wonder that one could hope for.