I'm pretty used to feeling like, as something is going on, I'm not getting what other people are getting, or I'm getting something that other people aren't getting. And I'm certainly aware that any time any of us read a book or watch a movie, "what you see depends on who you are". In other words, all of us bring our own life experiences with us and anything new we encounter we see through the filter of that experience.

So I figured that it was the normal "Left vs Right" driving the wildly diverse reviews of the latest offering from The Wachowski Brothers, who wrote the screenplay, and Warner Brothers Entertainment. When The Hub expressed a strong interest in seeing V for Vendetta ("Government buildings get blown up! That's got to put me in a better mood" he said, by way of explaining his reasoning. The Hub has been known to watch entire movies just for the explosions) I couldn't tell what I was getting into. It was either a thought provoking, gripping tale of daring-do and people taking back their government from totalitarian theocratic neo-cons or a silly but mildly dangerous comic book adaptation which blurred the lines between freedom fighter and terrorist in ways that were not only poorly reasoned but inappropriate in post 9/11 western society. The only thing any reviewers seemed to agree on was that the movie was a) political, b) violent, and c) the female lead, Evey, was a throwaway role, played well enough by Natalie Portman....but could have been equally well played by, say, a female baboon. It was only after seeing the movie myself I would remember that all of the reviews I read happened to have been written by men. As a female pacifist with a stressful personal life, this movie didn't look like a lot of fun to me. But, it beat staying home cleaning dog drool off the sofa. So I saw it.....

At which point I really wondered if anybody, anywhere, saw the same movie I did. I mean, if Hugo Weaving hadn't had on a Guy Fawkes mask the entire time he played "V" I might have gotten up to check and make sure I was in the right theater. That's not to say that it wasn't political, and it certainly was violent. But, in my opinion, those are the only things the movie had in common with any of its reviews.

So, I'm going to tell you about the movie I saw. Let me know if anything jumps out at you. I'll try not to give too much away, but I'm betting the majority of my readers have already seen it.

As the story began, I could immediately see where the Right was coming from. The movie begins with a voice over explaining how V took his inspiration from Guy Fawkes, the man many Americans have no idea tried to blow up Parliament, containing Lords, Commons, the King, innocent bystanders and even a few dogs, in the so called "Gunpowder Plot" of November 5, 16 - On the screen you see Fawkes being captured and executed. But with that limited information, it's a little difficult to feel sorry for him, to say nothing about incongruous to hear all this talk about "ideas" while watching some dude try to light off several barrels of gunpowder in the basement of a packed building.

What the Wachowski brothers are expecting audiences to be aware of is a sort of "connotative meaning" to the image of Fawkes from the distance of 400 years. In the first place, it's not like Fawkes didn't have a gripe against the government at the time - they were burning Catholics left and right in those days, which, really is not a preferred way to meet your maker. Terribly painful and you have to show up at the pearly gates smelling like smoke. So the level of violence that constituted "politics" in those days would (hopefully) be considered unacceptable by today's standards. More important though is this: Fawkes failed. And the REASON why he failed is because at least one of his co-conspirators got cold feet about killing all those innocent people, some of whom were even sympathetic to their cause. Thus, somebody sent somebody a warning letter, and the rest is history. Then, of course, some people say the gunpowder was too old to have blown up anyway. Thus Fawkes has become, over time, as much a figure of fun as a dire warning. Cheeky Britons today celebrate Guy Fawkes day with bonfires and ask one another, "wait, are we celebrating that he didn't blow up parliament or that he tried to?" Cynics say Fawkes was "the only man to enter parliament with honorable intentions" - or at least, clear plans. He's kind of a poster boy for everybody who ever got burnt up at about their taxes and fantasized for a few minutes about bombing the IRS.

Lacking that knowledge, or, indeed, even having it, it's a little hard to know what to make of V when he first appears on the screen, saving Evey from three secret policemen intent on rape. Some reviewers noted that these guys were "ugly". As opposed to what? Attractive rapists?!? I know almost all of you are aware of this, but to anyone who is not: rapist = ugly. Period.

But, back to V. He's wearing a perpetually smiling Fawkes mask, wide brimmed hat and cloak and bristling with knives. His voice is a perfection of controlled emotion, while his words are obfuscating and alliterative. Hugo Weaving, with his beautiful and subtle voice and ability to show emotion through gesture, stance, and movement, is perfectly cast in this role. My thoughts, though, were showing on Evey's face, "Okay, this guy clearly needs to get out more often. Or, perhaps it's too late."

The nagging question for me, but, apparently for no one else who saw the movie is this: What is Evey doing out after curfew in the first place? Because, it's rapidly made clear that England governed by a "high chancellor" and his inner circle is totalitarian, extreme, and means business. Some reviewers called the government's symbol a "modified cross" and it's rhetoric Christian extremism. But, as a Christian, the symbol didn't look like anything I'd identify as a cross and the rhetoric was nothing I'd identify with Jesus. This is a totalitarian government like the ones we've all seen before: based on a cult of personality. In this case, it's a guy named Sutler, who looked to me more like Saddam Hussein than Hitler, and his mouthpiece, Prothoro, who appears to be an evil mixture of late night used car salesman and talk radio personality in love with the sound of his own voice. To me the point isn't that it's a government of the left, right or center. The problem is that it's a government with absolute power and absolute power....well, we all went to school.

But back to Evey. Her story, like everyone else's comes out slowly. (Since this is a predictable story line you don't mind waiting around to see it all be revealed in creative ways) We first see her minutes before she hits the streets, taking her life in her hands. She's squeezing into a sexy dress, jamming her feet into gotta-hurt high heels, and oozing stress and fear out of every pore before she ever steps foot into the street. This must be one hell of an important party she's got to get to!

And it is. She's been invited / summoned by a powerful man at her work place, a television studio. He turns out to be a Jay Leno type with a heart of gold, but we don't know that at first. We see Evey running scared at work, apologizing to him for missing the party as she stands nervously in his huge office before his huge desk. Meanwhile, the police are after her, because she was seen in the company of V after his first controlled demolition ( you know it's a controlled demolition because it's set to music and has fireworks, in an unused building at night when everyone is terrified to be on the streets anyway. The music is what alerts people to look out their windows and see what's going on)

Shortly before all of that, we meet our hero, Fitch. Although he doesn't look like much of a hero, sitting, as he is, in an inner circle meeting with Sutler on video screen being all menacing and weird. He hasn't got the cleft chin you expect from a hero, he's middle aged and slightly shambling. You're only willing to give him the benefit of the doubt because he sort of mumbles the party mantra as the meeting ends before he goes out, in his role as chief inspector something-or-the-other, to find Evey and V.

But, in a movie which tries, anyway, for things being not what they seem, he soon reveals himself as the bravest man on screen. Oh, sure, V goes for the action and he's got plenty of style, but V also has his answers. Fitch has to look for them, and be open to what each answer means. He has to ask the hard questions and be willing to take the answers, "What if those attacks weren't perpetrated by terrorists? What if it was someone in this government?"

And, there he goes, down a very unpleasant rabbit hole, changed in the way many men are changed: by facts. The truth does set him free, though it naturally doesn't make his life any easier. As the movie goes on we learn through his investigation how the government came to power, and surmise how V got into his present situation: freaky medical experiments gone awry.

But V, aficionado of old movies like The Count of Monte Cristo, is of the school that a gentleman never discusses his health. Thrown together with Evey once more, he blithely covers his scarred hands with his gloves, "I was in a fire a long time ago. It's not very good meal time conversation" he says firmly and cheerfully. He's not looking for pity, and he's not there to explain himself. We know that he's got a vendetta against the specific people, now in positions of high authority, who directly did harm to him. That's why the whole argument that this movie "glorifies terrorism" is absurd. Read the title. It's "V for Vendetta" not "S for Solution."

Evey is still in a prison of her own making though. In her second confrontation with V in his underground art-filled lair, the most noticeable image in the room is the John Waterhouse painting of The Lady of Shallott. It's an apt image. Like the lady, Evey has freed herself from her tower of the status quo but her future looks very bleak indeed. I've always truly hated this painting, symbolizing to me, as it does, a woman who cannot break free even with her own chain in her own hand. Evey's nature is not a violent one. She is unlikely to get caught up in a vendetta. "I feel sorry for Mercedes" she says, as old Monte Cristo movie comes to an end.

"Why?" asks V

"Because he loved revenge more than he loved her."

What follows is a story in which V. comes to love Evey at least as much as he loves his vendetta. And it's unrealistic to expect him to give it up for her. Lets face it, we're not talking about a guy here who can just pick up and rejoin mainstream society any time he wants. But he can, and does, free Evey from her prison of fear. By the end of the movie, she is a changed person. Maybe it's the subtlety of Portman's performance that kept reviewers from seeing her as "transformed". Okay, she doesn't pick up a hand grenade and hurl it at anybody, but why should she? That's not who she is. Her walk, talk, stance, and, most of all, decisions based on what SHE wants to do indicate a woman who has become free indeed. She becomes herself, and is there, with Fitch at the end of the movie where V cannot be. Rational and compassionate, aware first hand of the sacrifices demanded by the ideals of freedom, she is in a position to lead people forward.

Sure, the movie ends with a lot of people on the march, and fireworks, and special effects. But there's a limit to all of that - somebody is going to have to get into the hard work of government. Way unsexy. You'll never see a movie about that. Not even if Portman grows her hair back for it.