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It doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out why the Borden murders still grip us.
So did she do it?
The jury said no, but historians and artists almost always say yes.
If you believe theblurbs,Lizzieis designed to give us a fresh Lizzie, a queer Lizzie, afeministLizzie.
Takes a legend and blows it up from the inside, one critic writes.
The Lizzie Borden story for the modern generation, writes another.
A suitably 2018 version, befitting of the #MeToo generation, says athird.
The New YorkTimesdescribesSevignyscharacter as literally smashing the patriarchy (in the face, with an ax).
Or do we risk disturbing the dead?
Youre a most unusual woman, Ms. Borden, says a journalist.
Montgomerys Lizzie never fully explains herself, which is perhaps the most historically accurate part of the movie.
The real Lizzie never quite made herself knowable, either.
(Translation: I killed my dad!)
Most notably, the womens plan to strip nude and then kill feels not objectifying, but empowering.
Sevigny wanted the scene to be carnal.
The nudity, the queer love story, the downfall of the patriarch.
A suitably 2018 Lizzie Borden, indeed or is it?
In fact, every theory it presents has been done before.
And the idea that she killed in the nude?
Ax murder is messy.
Blood washes off skin much easier than it does out of clothes.
So why do onscreen Lizzies always seem to end up naked, splattered in blood?
