If you were to judge Ready or Not movie based on what it appears to be, you know, like a mere dark gore thriller flick, I would say there is more to it than beats the eye.
I say this because even as I watched, I couldn’t help but relate it to those who have recently married.
How a marriage opens them up to new people in their lives, out of the blue. How difficult it is for them to cope up with this foreign life where people walk in with their own qualms and expect this new person to take them all in.
It is a setup which is not alien to most of the countries where bride and groom end up living in the same house as their parent’s. It is a challenge for the bride wherein she has to accept every way of life that the groom has grown up with and is very well accustomed to. The latter is quite unfair.
It is this unfairness that makes him place his people above the bride and then all hell breaks loose on the poor girl as she ends up accepting her fate. It takes only a warrior to walk out of this bizarre setup alive.
All of this has been ingrained in an allegory that Ready or Not movie is. How, you ask? Don’t fret! I have explained this in what follows.
Ready or Not Movie Explained (Spoilers)
So to begin with, Ready or Not movie doesn’t waste time at all and gets straight to business. That being said, it directly comes to the point showing a girl getting wed into a big rich family – The Le Domas.
But just as how people are, that is their outward appearance belying their inner conduct, and when you really get to know them you see their true colors, the Le Domas family too has a face that they show when our protagonist Grace (Samara Weaving) marries Alex Le Domas (Mark O’ Brien) and becomes a part of the family.
Traditional Hullabaloo in Movie Ready
The family brings in their own set of traditional rules and regulations that our new age hero Grace finds difficult to adjust to. So is the case with every third person who walks into such a set-up. Some beliefs are hard to digest and half of these beliefs don’t even have a proper logical explanation, to begin with.
Many people end up following age-old ways without ever questioning the logic behind it. It is this very reason why there are thousands of superstitions floating around. Question everything! Stay inquisitive!
Grace, being one such curious girls, finds their conventions funny but decides to comply for the sake of Alex, and his family.
Family Initiation Custom
Whenever you become a part of a family, you generally have a family gathering, an event, you know, where everyone is present so that they get to know this new addition better. You can then have games for entertainment, food, and what-not so that they make this new person feel at home.
The Le Domas people call this family tradition an initiation custom where they play a game a little too seriously. The logic they give here is that their great-Grandfather Victor Le Domas had made a deal with a certain someone called Mr. Le-Bail who had promised to help them create fortune if the traditions were followed.
The family genuinely believes it, which feels like baloney to a lot of us. But if you just read it as something they have always done, you will understand that there are countless similar things, that even you do on a daily basis, without giving them a second thought. When you try to trace the reason behind, you realize there never was one.
So there is a wooden box that delivers a card to you, and you have to play that game. Grace ends up taking out a card for Hide and Seek which is a tad more serious than the other games.
Here, look at Hide and Seek as one such game people are really serious about winning. Meaning the intensity is wild, the bar is set too high. It has been poetically risen to mean that if you get found, you die.
Gore Galore in Ready or Not
Seconds into the game, Grace realizes the family is nuts. That they really want to win the game by hook or crook.
Brown-haired niece, you continue to exist.
Bits that follow are all fantastical. There is a lot of gore involved where people get stabbed, shot and killed.
You get to see each one of the family members, up close. It is that vision of Grace that sees them for who they really are. Up close, not only are they ugly but they are downright loco too.
That Quintessential Positive Character
The only one sane enough to understand what’s going on, who sees through it all, is Daniel Le Domas (Adam Brody) who is akin to a respite in this madhouse.
It is generally the brother-in-law who understands every newcomer and tries to defend him/her from his family, for he knows them up close.
Don’t take it personally, they are just trying to figure out if you are a gold digging whore. You know, like my wife.
We see Daniel doing that aplenty. However, he is still bound by this stupid tradition, that deep down he believes in, but isn’t bold enough to counter.
Look at all the deaths in the movie as Grace coming out victorious in little squabbles and fights. People accidentally killing each other are repercussions of their own misgivings that make victims out of them. Their deliberate attempt to hurt Grace ends up backfiring, and they hurt their own family members instead.
The Help, being at the lowest level of the pyramid, are the first ones to suffer. The newly married girl often finds it difficult to gel up with the Help first, because the latter doesn’t like the way she brings about change in their routine life. So we see them getting laid off, here killed, first.
Alex Turning in
One of the most interesting characters would be that of husband Alex Le Domas. The husband is madly in love with Grace, so he tries his best to protect her. He takes her side in almost everything agreeing upon the insanity his family is. Unfortunately, since he is a part of the family he ends up being a middle man.
Alex supporting his family is what any family man would do, despite him knowing how stupid they all are. The man of the house tries to avoid fights and squabbles. He stops things from aggravating, tries to put out the fire between the bride and the in-laws. But that can only be done only to a certain extent.
Hey, you wanted to get married.
We see Alex giving up on Grace at one point after which it is impossible for Grace to take him back. When the climax comes, we see Alex trying to suffocate Grace who then tries to stab her toward the end which goes on to show the power of influence.
I want a divorce.
Ready or Not Ending Explained
If it were not a fantastical movie, Ready or not movie could have ended on that very epiphany where the family realizes that the Le-Bail talk was nothing but a bunch of hocus-pocus nonsense. That they were not going to explode after sunrise.
But it is a fantastical movie, remember? All this time the movie has been making a serious analogy, comparing things throughout, to a real-life scenario.
As the family tries to let the truth sieve in, one by one they begin to explode. The damage by their pointless beliefs has already been done. It is their very own tradition that ends up swallowing them.
It explodes them, read here – figuratively as something that blows their minds away, as they accept the futility of what they had been following all this time.
So even though it feels cool to see them blow to gore, what has really happened is that they have accepted their fate and lost to the new age thinking that questions traditions.
In the end, we see the house burning down to a shaken yet confident Grace who sits outside lighting up a cigarette. It is like a really cool, apt and badass ending where she answers the question that tries to investigate – “What happened to you?”
In-laws.
Explaining it further I would say she might have ended up having a divorce and given these rich people a run for their money which is like a great analogy for burning the house down and making an escape from the train wreck.
The Final Verdict
Even if you watch Ready or Not movie for what it appears to be, you will still find it very entertaining. For there are plenty of twists and turns that will keep you riveted to the flick.
The set and design used herein are simply stunning. The lighting is just perfect. Great cinematography!
You can watch it if you are rooting for some thrill in your life. The movie breathes on thrill and gore, and that’s what it delivers. However, if you watch it keeping in mind how it relates to a shaded reality it would be more fun.
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Check out the trailer of Ready or Not movie:
Ready or Not
Pros
- Good Direction
- A Great Allegory
- Great Lighting and Sets
Cons
- Cliched Theme
- Not for everyone
