B.J. Novak’s revenge thrillerVengeanceis a profound experience that explores a story within a story through the eyes of a writer. This comes as no surprise that the office actor-turned-writer would deliver such an eloquent film debut. His other books,The Book With No PictureandOne More Thing, have also done phenomenally well. Thought-provoking and emotionally moving,Novak uses the creative wraparoundpoint of view of a bigshot writer to tell the slow-burning story of the complicated world of illusions, relationships, murder, and the fear of commitment.
From the very beginning,Vengeancepumps up the tension to an 11. Viewers see a fatally wounded girl in the middle of the desert. As she points her phone up to the sky, we realize the grim reality that her broken phone is not going to save her and that whoever she is trying to reach will never hear from her. The film dramatically pauses and shifts to another, less daunting environment in which one is exposed to the big and bright city of New York.New York Magazine writer Ben Menalowitzand his friend John Mayer are having a conversation about relationships, one that will come to mean something as the film progresses.
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Having a layered exchange about how love never seemed to work out for them, the conversation paints a telling picture of who both characters are in the first act of this film, especially Ben. While his friend seems to be okay with having six or seven partners in a casual dating experience, Ben pretends to understand such logic. Ben brings up during the conversation that what if he could truly find a profound connection with someone else, subverting his friend’s initial take on how one should run relationships. However, during this conversation, something else is going on with Ben. While he doesn’t necessarily agree with John’s approach to relationships, we can see the anxiety that comes with committing to one person.Yet, within this perplexing statein which he finds himself when it comes to relationships, there is a person who longs to feel that deep connection with someone else.
For a person like Ben Menalowitz, one can see on paper that he has everything he wants and the looks to back it up. An established contributing writer at one of the best publications in the United States, and with his finely tuned appearance, one might think he’s set as a writer, but nothing could be further from the truth. As with any artist who identifies with the profession, one is always searching for more. He wants to dive deeper. He wants to write a story that is not only for America but also for himself—something that people will listen to and connectwith on an intimate level. He decides to start a podcast in the hopes that someone will take his ideas seriously.
Getting in touch with his friend Eloise, a local podcast producer, he comes up with an intriguing ideafor a podcast experiment. While the idea is intriguing, she does not believe it will be enough to pique the listener’s interest. Whether one calls it divine intervention or the law of averages, a story eventually leads him to Texas, leading him on a journey he will never forget.
While Ben is sleeping one night, he receives a mysterious call from Texas from Ty, the brother of a girl Ben used to casually date named Abileene. Ben doesn’t seem to recognize who the woman is and is initially frustrated by the call until he is told that Abileene is dead. While Ben tries his best to connect emotionally to a girl he barely knows, he tries to console Ty, butTy wants more than just his condolences. Out of respect for Ty, he decides to go to Texas; however, things take a darker turn once he arrives.
During the funeral, he is still unable to make the connection and is rather put off by how friendly her family is with him. He begins to piece things together and suspects that Abilene may have told the family that their connection was deeper than it appeared. During this time, Ty starts to tell Ben that he doesn’t believe his sister overdosed and believes someone murdered her. Ben is perplexed by this, wondering why the police were not involved if he came to such conclusions. Ty explains to him that in Texas, no one calls 9-1-1. Ben is intrigued by the strange culture of Texas, and he decides that this will be his story. Eloise is elated by the idea and agrees that he should pursue it.He decides that he will not only recordthe conversations with the family surrounding the death of Abileene but also talk about the culture that has built the makeup of Texas for the show.
The previous conversation begins to have an impact in small waves. Ben’s fear of committing is coming back to haunt him at this point. From the moment he hears her name, he has no idea who Abilene is from the moment he hears her name. While it appears that Abileene felt more for him, the connection was not as strong due to his fleeting nature to flee from deeper connections. This is evident at the funeral, and when the family treats him like family, she may have spoken fondly of him when she was alive.Instead of attempting to feel anything more deeply, he channels it into a financial gain or a career opportunity, exacerbating any emotional disconnect.
As he starts to dive into the rabbit hole of cultural dynamics, secrets, and the personal layers of Abileene’s family, he starts to realize this is more than what he bargained for. While the family tries to convince him that a Mexican drug dealer named Sancholo killed Abileene, Ben digs deeper to find out the truth about that night. He finds out that Ty was not only right about Abileene not being a drug user, but that Sancholo was not the one who killed her, but that he claimed it for gang respect.One of the biggest takeaways from this sceneis that Sancholo only appears to be a drug dealer, but away from the cartel, Ben realizes Sancholo desires to be a normal person, someone that Abilene saw that others did not.
While Texas in and of itself has built one big illusion for Ben at this point, the prettiest one in all of Texas comes in the form of Quentin Sellers, a music producer in Arttown, Marfa, who not only has the gift for gab but has the presence to back it up. Ben becomes immersed in Quentin’s way with words, a technique that everyone seems to be drawn to once they come into contact with him.From the way Quentin views musicto the way he sees the world, this out-of-the-box thinking is something that continues to intrigue Ben throughout the film. After visiting Quentin, he gives him one of Abilene’s CDs.
The more Ben pieces everything together, the more sinister and twisted it becomes. Thinking that he can get help from the authorities, his attempts to find answers through this channel come up as dead ends. No one seems to want to help or take accountability for the crimes that happen in their area, further supporting the fantastical umbrella the film has portrayed its people under.
As Ben’s podcast becomes more popular, Eloise contacts Robin from the popular show American Moment. If he gathers enough information for the segment, he will be featured on the show. When he finds out about this news, his car explodes. It appears he is getting closer to the answers he needs, and someone does not want him to know what those answers are. When he wakes up at the hospital, Ben not only sees that the Shaw family has taken him there,but he also starts to feel a level of closenessthat he did not feel towards the beginning of the film. Because they have helped him, he feels now that he has to find the answers to what happened to Abilene.
He receives a call from Eloise during his time out with the Shaw family at a Whataburger, telling him to cancel the entire podcast due to the day’s earlier events. He tells Eloise that he must solve the case for Abilene, and he is unwavering in his determination to do so. He then goes back to the family’s dinner, where the joyous evening quickly turns sour. The grandmother of Abilene remarks on her granddaughter’s goodness before bringing up her heavy drug use. When Ben hears this, he becomes furious, breaking down the trust and illusions he has built up in the family.Abilene’s mother then confides in Benafter the fight between him and Ty in the parking lot that she believes she took the drugs to hide her pain. She then says that doing drugs is done to escape internal suffering, not just because one wants to.
This scene is particularly vital because it explicitly but purposefully explores the theme of illusions.Vengeanceis built on deception. If one isn’t careful, one can get caught up in fantasy. Ben slowly begins to get to know the family and others in the town, and as a result, he too starts to believe that this town is somewhat of a mirage but gradually falls under its charms. The Shaw family cares for him but is largely responsible for feeding him this delusion.
The entire town operates on a set of hidden myths and secrets. These two things are, in many ways, what motivate the plot and characters within the film. Living under the deception that “everything is bigger in Texas” is the law to these characters, and they will pay any price necessary to conceal their flaws. Whether it was Ty lying to Ben about Abilene so he could spend time with him and investigate the matter of his sister further or Abilene’s supposed escapist reasons for why she did drugs in the first place,Novak points out that ideologies are just as strongas the truths presented in front of them; once shaken, those beliefs are fractured.
After giving the situation some thought, Ben realizes that, while he originally intended for the story to bring him success and money, he is gradually coming to realize that this was not the case at all. He says in the final segment of his podcast that he came looking for a story, but that there is none. He recalls Abilene’s love of numbers just before he decides to go back home. He enters the damaged phone’s password using the code that is stored in her room.Once he opens the phone, he reads the conversationsaddressed to Quentin Sellers. He then discovers that she used his name to conceal the fact that she was trying to get drugs from her supplier, explaining why the family believed she was closer to him than they thought.
He takes clothing from Ty’s room and instructs Ty’s younger brother to take the ATV to the party Ty was attending that evening. When they get there, he goes up to Quentin and says he wants to talk to him about the podcast. They eventually make their way to his tent, which not only has drugs but also another girl who has fallen unconscious from his drugs. As Quentin begins his rambling monologue about the night Abilene passed away,He took her to the desert on the nightshe overdosed, or to what is known as the “Afterparty,” where there would be no signal because nobody calls the police in Texas. This is because they document everything that is said. With no reception and no way to call for assistance, she would tragically die alone that night. He pulls out a gun and shoots Quentin as retaliation for Abilene’s murder. Ben then deletes the files from the phone.
Ben has grown since the first moments of the film. As a man who previously feared commitment, he shows a surprising level of it by dedicating his time and efforts to finding her killer, and in the end, he seeks her justice even though the ties between them were not personal. When he finally shoots the person responsible for her death, Ben no longer needs the podcast files because, inherently, he got the story he was looking for.The story was for and about Benthe whole time. He overcomes fear, loneliness, and the desire for validation, trusting in himself that his past has created a better version of himself.
