The Worst Person in the World
January 17, 2023
Living in this world, how can we be defined as "good" or "bad”? The movie “The Worst Person in the World” gave an answer.
Julie, the main character of the film, is a typical Nordic woman: with a high education degree and social welfare in hand, she has the courage and freedom to seek what she truly wants. After getting fed up with surgery and medicine, she realized she was more interested in people's spiritual world, so she switched her major and started studying psychology. At the age of 30, Julie works in a small bookstore and lives a life without a clear goal or direction. Seeing friends around her settle down and have children, although Julie is in a relationship with Aksel, a comic artist who is 15 years older than her, she is still uncertain about whether she can be a good mother or if the relationship is what she really wants. There, when people are celebrating Aksel’s newly published work, Julie sneaks into a wedding where no one knows who she is and crushes Eivind at the party.
In today's society, with the increasing awareness of gender equality and the development of the feminist movement, more and more women have freedom and choices. Even so, such freedom can still overwhelm individuals when faced with a variety of choices. So why? Why do women become more confused when they finally get rid of all the constraints and norms? It is because of those that haven’t been changed, I guess. Although people have become more tolerant and open to different options, society's definition of a "successful" life remains the same as it always has been: finding the right job at the right age, starting a happy family with the right people, making individuals like Julie have become more eager to seek out their ideal life before getting "old".
Growing up in China, I, like many girls around me, am trying to break through society's established expectations through education and self-empowerment. Since years ago, I have told myself that I will not allow myself to return back to the “comfort zone” and become another woman who meets the expectations and binds her feet. For us, freedom is something that is passively chosen after experiencing all kinds of constraints, but for people like Julie, society has gradually provided them with the freedom to actively choose what they want. Seeing Julie's confusion in the film also made me start to wonder: how should women find their own direction after all the external repression disappear? How can we make our choices truly our choices without letting them define us as achievers or losers?
