Regardless of whether I liked it or not, I found Without to be a pretty confusing movie. Things happened that were never resolved – The moving of the iPhone, the welts on the main character’s back, the picture of the other caretaker, the walking into the forest, and a few other things in the movie that were merely implied but not explained – But since I’m tasked with figuring out the film’s premise, I’m going to assume that these occurrences either were explained and I missed them, or were intentionally left as open as they were. If this weren’t the case I imagine the movie wouldn’t have been shown in class in the first place.
So in order to understand the premise of the movie I feel like I should go over the plot –Joslyn, a 19-year-old who I think was said to have completed her first year of college, travels to a small island town in order to take care of a catatonic old man, Frank, while the family he lives with is away on vacation. Much of the movie is her alone with the old man, and with no internet and not much human interaction, she goes a little crazy. Eventually it’s revealed that this is the town where Joslyn’s girlfriend came from – a girlfriend who has semi-recently committed suicide. Shortly before the family returns, Joslyn goes to the house of the girl’s mother and talks to her. She also has some sort of tryst with a local guy, and experiences various weird happenings in the house. When the family comes back, they get mad at her for making a few small errors, and she breaks down in both tears and laughter, exclaiming “I miss her so much.” Then she leaves.
I think the main focus of the movie is Joslyn’s craziness as she is alone in the house. It seems to me that this would be the third part of the premise, i.e. “_____ leads to insanity.” So what’s the first part? The most obvious guess would be loneliness. Joslyn is not only without the internet or a TV of her own, but she is also “Without” her former girlfriend. When the parents confront her about her, er, transgressions, it seems like “I miss her so much.” Is being stated as the reason for them, though to us it’s not just the reason for putting knives in the dishwasher but also the reason for acting sexually towards the old man and doing NSFW things in front of a webcam (I think it’s worth noting that we never see the computer screen while the latter happens).
So the most likely premise to Without would be “Loneliness leads to insanity.” But I think it might be good to consider adding something else to that premise: guilt. What makes me think that Joslyn had a lot of guilt over her girlfriend’s death is the line “Did you know that she felt this way?” That the girl’s mother says to Joslyn when she visits. We know that Joslyn tried to console her girlfriend through chats on her iPhone, but this and the line imply that Joslyn wasn’t actually there for her, and that she never tried to get the girl help. It seems to me that these two things would cause a great amount of guilt, and I also think it would be weird to go to a dead person’s hometown for an extended period of time just to remember them. Joslyn probably went in order to talk to the girl’s mother and get over her guilt, which, judging by her laughter, she seems to have done at the end of the movie.
Even after some thought, I still have no idea about most of the weird occurrences. The only one I can think of an explanation for is that, all but once, the iPhone appeared on the windowsill near the other side of the bed – Where a lover would sleep. This says to me that the phone’s movement was just Joslyn sleepwalking and thinking of her girlfriend. Other than that I haven’t a clue, which probably means I’ve failed in achieving what was intended in this assignment. But I’m quite sure that the movie’s premise is “Loneliness and guilt leads to insanity.”
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