The Descent Review

I couldn't get my wife to go. My buddy couldn't get his wife to go either. So we went to see The Descent on our own.

My wife won't see movies with snakes. Or death by water. Or death by fire. So really we've only watched like two movies together in 10 years. I think the last one was Pride and Prejudice. And I think we saw something about Reese Witherspoon being hit by a car and trying to live in her old apartment.

So she's definitely not going to see a movie about a bunch of women exploring a cave and running into some difficulty. But, I'm telling you, EVERY woman should see this movie. Not because of the gruesome gore, or the broken bones, or the claustrophobia, or the creatures.

But for the metaphors! What is the cave but the male mind? It's one of the last unexplored places that these women haven't conquered yet. Oh, they've got their gear, their Edelweiss climbing ropes, their Black Diamond halogen headlights. Have you ever seen your wife or your significant other, strap on their gear, pour a cup of coffee and come at you with that serious look? It's scary, isn't it? You start apologizing reflexively, instinctively.

The six women meet up, one in a depression because of a car accident that took her child and her husband, and they get ready to plumb the depths of a cave in the Appalachian mountains. Heh. Every guy knows though, that the automatic apologizing to a signifcant other in full cave exploring gear is just an ink-cloud distraction to slow down the relentless onslaught of the woman trying to get at your mind. Trying to figure you out. Trying to understand you better so you can understand THEM better. We escape into our cave and not many women can navigate down there--in the darkness, with the squirmy stuff, and come out whole and unscarred to tell about it.

So the women descend into the cave mouth. To claim it for themselves. My buddy and I looked at each other in the darkness over our $12.00 popcorn and sodas and we knew, deep down, that our wives could be one of them. Whooping it up, scrabbling into our secret caverns, dropping apple cores everywhere, trying to get at our essence and claiming it.

Silly, silly women.

Once in the cave, different things happen that you just know will happen. They get stuck. They lose stuff. There's a cave-in (imagine that) that creates a do-or-die situation. Any guy will tell you, that once a woman enters the cave of his mind, it is an endless maze of regret, a haze of longing hanging over everything obscuring and distorting the terrain, the primal howls of his being echoing down long, deep dangerous passages that lead nowhere good. It's home turf, baby, and you better watch out.

As the women scrabble around trying to find their way out, all hell breaks loose. And its not about claiming new ground anymore. It's about surviving. It's about getting out whole and alive. These women give as good as they get and there are some magnificent scenes of men's pride getting gored, their arrogance being skewered by pick-axes. The women discover hidden wells of courage and strength but are undone by their own treachery. It's like as evil as men can be, women can be just as evil.

It's a draw. A woman emerges, bloodied, having hacked her way back out, through sinew and bone, a survivor. She'll think twice, before she ever descends into another cave again, I bet. The creatures left within howl with outrage at the transgression, lapping at the blood spilled on the cave floor.

I went home and did a crossword puzzle with my wife, every once in awhile looking over to make sure she didn't have a pack on and a headlamp.

Metaphorically speaking, of course.