![]() ![]() This is the “main plot” of the movie - or so Big Hollywood wants us to believe.īut there’s all sorts of weird, distorted, fuzzy mental stuff happening while Riley takes her revenge, and while a less generous critic might call it “bad editing” or “pointless flashbacks,” what if it’s actually supposed to be a hint that reality in suburbia is never what it seems?! After her daughter and husband are “killed” by the “gang,” Riley North is dealt a quick trinity of mental trauma: She wakes up from a coma, she’s put on anti-psychotics, and she gets hit by a Taser in the courtroom and dragged off to a psych ward. Now, if you’re taking the movie literally, this is the point where a carful of three gang members and about 100 neck tattoos drives by and guns down Carly and Chris, after which Riley realizes the entire justice system is corrupt, drops off the grid, and reappears five years later with better hair, a book-length kill list, and the gun skills of a Navy Seal. In order to salvage the night, the North family heads to a winter carnival, where they ride the Ferris wheel, order peppermint ice cream (get it?), and frolic around on a carousel while laughing in that slightly manic, Instagram-friendly way of suburbanites everywhere. And after a long day spent juggling work and motherhood, she races home to catch the end of Carly’s birthday party only to find that Peg has sabotaged the entire thing by inviting Carly’s friends to a party at her mansion, so that no one shows up at the North home. She and Chris don’t seem to have enough money to buy a house. She misses part of her daughter’s birthday party because her tyrannical boss makes her work overtime. And yet, despite a lovely daughter and chill husband named Chris, her life has its tensions: the familiar trials of a woman of trying to have it all in a post–“women can have it all” era. In the first few scenes with pre-MMA Riley North, guns and drugs and roundhouse kicks couldn’t be farther from her mind. What oppresses the average white suburban working mother? It’s not “pesky Mexican drug warlords,” that’s for sure. The gang members and the corrupt justice system are just metaphorical stand-ins for the real enemy - Peg. Instead, Riley North lays awake the night after the confrontation in the parking lot, wishing she could do the day over and indulging in a fantasy of herself as a suburban mom gone badass, an avenging angel. Though the plot of Peppermint is basically a gender-swapped revenge thriller, the gun porn and dangerous stereotypes and “lazy storytelling … where the dangers lurking just outside a perfect suburban existence are pesky Mexican drug warlords,” as Manuel Betancourt wrote in Remezcla, make it less of a indulgently blood-drenched action flick and more of a propaganda piece.īut if you can possibly bring yourself to ignore the entire central plot of Peppermint, I have a conspiracy theory for you: There is no “García gang,” Carly never dies, and no one ever picks up a pornographically large firearm. If you’re confused about why a white suburban soccer mom is taking on a horribly stereotypical gang pulled straight from Trump’s ravings about MS-13 ( “very bad”), you’re not alone. But before we reach that point, we suffer through a number of narrative indignities: Carly gets gunned down by a deadly Latino cartel called the “García gang” and, in retaliation, Riley North becomes a professional mixed-martial-arts fighter who takes out the gang members one by one with military-grade weaponry. ![]() After the argument, Riley’s daughter, Carly, asks her mom why she didn’t just punch Peg in the face.įast-forward to the end of the movie, and Riley North does punch Peg in the face. ![]() Garner’s character, Riley North, tries to apologize, but Peg won’t have it. Clichéd mom-on-mom insults are exchanged, of the “You’d know the rules if you weren’t too busy WORKING to ever come to a PTA meeting” type and the “Not everyone can stay at home with their kids all day in their perfect MANSION” variety. The two mothers - both white and very suburban - are standing in a grocery store parking lot, arguing over who gets to sell Girl Scout cookies where. ![]() Within the first few minutes of Jennifer Garner’s latest movie, Peppermint, we meet a very blonde, very shrill, very perfect stay-at-home mom named Peg, who insults Garner’s character for working too much. Peppermint Photo: Tony Rivetti/Courtesy of STXfilms ![]()
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