For the final day of the 2019 Edinburgh Film Festival, I saw Firecrackers, a story of two girls who want to move out to New York after high school
Lou and Chantal already have plans to move from the start of the movie. But Chantal’s ex-boyfriend manages to worm his way into Chantal’s life again and mess everything up. Lou finds Chantal fully dressed and shivering in the shower after this encounter and it is very heavily implied that he raped her. He also stole their friend who was going to drive them to New York the day before the journey. In a fit of anger, Lou trashes his car.
Firecrackers really explores the differences between the treatment of men vs. the treatment of women in modern society. Lou and Chantal are given a severe punishment for trashing the car, but Chantal’s ex-boyfriend gets away with raping her. The way the men in this film talk to Lou and Chantal is also very sexist and disgusting. Firecrackers is mostly about what it’s like to be a woman in a world run by men and the experiences Lou and Chantal have to go through are very messed up as a result of it.
Firecrackers is a coming of age film about growing up and getting away from bad people. It definitely struck a chord with me and reminded me a lot of what it was like to finally leave high school.
7/10
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