[Film Review] Menopause (2021)

Imagine a blonde woman, bloody, screaming and stabbing someone out of the camera's range. When she's satisfied her work is done, she calmly gets out some ice cream from her freezer, her hands still covered in blood. This is the eye-grabbing opening of Joshua Nelson's horror film Menopause (2021).

The film spotlights several heterosexual couples living in a New Jersey town. Each couple (or trio, in one case) represents a different type of tension between men and women. The middle-aged wife is tired of being overlooked and taken for granted by her workaholic husband. After the nerdy girlfriend rhapsodizes about her love for all things Disney, her boyfriend condescendingly tells her, "You refuse to actually grow up." The boyfriend whose cancer has just gone into remission is the most sympathetic of the men in Menopause, but his girlfriend's conflicted feelings about acting as his caretaker aren't subtle. To illustrate the tensions that can arise once a marriage ends, an ex-husband refuses to pay his ex-wife alimony while constantly insulting his young girlfriend. 

There is also a group of women living at Sisterhood Sanctuary, a transitional home for survivors of abuse. It is the hippie leader of this group who excitedly tells the others about the upcoming total solar eclipse. She explains the rare event, saying, "Strange things start to happen, and they're about to get even stranger." She also reminds her housemates that in the past, women used the cycles of the moon to track their menstruation. While some of the women roll their eyes, it's impossible not to notice the glee in the leader's eyes as she awaits the astronomical event.

One by one, the women in the film realize they're late for their periods. Some worry they're pregnant, even though they haven't had sex recently. They're existing in a sustained state of premenstrual syndrome, more commonly known as PMS. Their hormones are raging, and the women all simultaneously decide on a target for this rage: men. 

One character points out that the word "lunatic" was originally derived from the Latin word "luna," meaning moon, since people believed the phases of the moon were linked to mental health issues. But Menopause doesn't treat these women as lunatics. Throughout the movie, themes of sexism and gender inequality pop up. There are subtle nods to how women are socialized, too -- one character who shows up at Sisterhood Sanctuary apologizes repeatedly as soon as she walks in the door, for no reason. The women there talk about the epidemic of violence against women; one talks about her abusive cop boyfriend and the cycles of violence in her own family. 

Despite the dark and murderous themes, Menopause is a very funny film. The actresses deliver absurd lines with the straightest faces, injecting a ton of humor into the bloody story. Two standouts in the cast are Jenn Nobile and Debra Holtzman, who play respectively a tough, sarcastic woman at Sisterhood Sanctuary and the Earth mother-type leader of the home. 

A woman at Sisterhood Sanctuary nonchalantly explains why she slept with her last sexual partner: "He has two fingers on each hand and two toes on each foot. I just didn't want him to feel ugly or unwanted." She gives no other details and just lets this strange tidbit hang in the air. Another darkly hilarious moment in the film takes place as a woman tells a story about a frustrating encounter with a man that most women know all too well. She says, "This guy told me I should smile more. And in that moment..." She trails off as the film cuts to her stabbing him with her high heel. 

An underlying theme in Menopause is female solidarity. Not only are these women's cycles synchronous and aligned with the phases of the moon, but their actions and motives are aligned as well. Even the ex-wife and her ex-husband's new girlfriend team up after the latter asks, "Why do you have blood on yours hands?" The ex-wife retorts, "Why the fuck not?" The new girlfriend mulls this over and acknowledges, "Good point." 

In addition, there are many nods to horror icon Stephen King in this film. One of the characters reads his short story collection; another reminisces about a family trip to Maine, including a visit to King's house. Like King's famous novel Carrie, Menopause is a story of women's menstrual cycles unleashing powerful forces. 

After one of the men in the film admits he feels some degree of guilt about his treatment of women, the leader of Sisterhood Sanctuary questions him: "Do you feel guilt because you hurt women or because it's come back to bite you in the ass?" It shouldn't take a rare astronomical event for men to realize women are their equals and should be treated well. Menopause shows the darkest side of what would happen if women were finally able to vent their collective anger toward men. 

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