Forgive me for wanting a little specificity

I just rewatched The Ritual (again) and I NEED to talk about Luke's line when he and Hutch are talking about the camp the first night and Hutch mentions staying on to hike a bit more after they're done with the trail.

"No, I think this is enough for me."

Because it's important to keep the overall broader thematic context of the movie in mind. It's an exploration of grief and loss and trauma, and the way those things affect us and our relationships. It's about figuring out how to move on from something you can never really recover from.

"No, I think this is enough for me."

Luke is the character through which we see this journey. He's irrevocably changed by a random act of tragic violence and we watch him struggle with survivors guilt and trying to continue forward after what he's been through.

"No, I think this is enough for me."

We eventually see him get there. We see him make the active choice to keep moving forward, to move on, to live. We see him actively fight to stay alive. But that's the end of his arc. The culmination of his development. So what does that say about where he started? What does that say about his will to live at the beginning of his arc? At the time Hutch is trying to get him to agree to future plans?

"No, I think this is enough for me."

Oh I am having THOUGHTS about the exchange Hutch and Luke have the night before they head into the woods. When Hutch says he's thinking of doing more hiking once they're done with the trail and Luke responds with, "No, I think this is enough for me."

On the surface, it's a man who's depressed and traumatized backing away from an activity with someone he now feels awkward and uncomfortable around. Which makes sense. Hutch refuses to acknowledge how their relationship has changed until much later, but it very much has changed and Luke is clearly aware of this. It's a good moment that highlights the dynamic between the two of them.

But then I started thinking about the line in the context of the films themes about facing and overcoming trauma. Of Luke's arc from survivor's guilt to recognizing his life still has meaning and is worth living. An arc that ends with Luke making the active choice to live.

And suddenly, the simple line "No, I think this is enough for me" hits a whole lot harder

Rewatching The Ritual (again) and it's time to truly reach with some probably unnecessary analysis agdkfjdh

It's ALWAYS struck me how Luke isn't using the waist or chest straps on his pack when they're hiking at the beginning. Maybe it's just because I've done long hikes with packs like that but I can't NOT notice that he isn't using them, especially since all the others ARE using them. Carrying a fully loaded pack without using the straps is super difficult because all the weight is sitting on your shoulders rather than being more evenly distributed. It's an inefficient and uncomfortable way to be carrying a heavy weight.

It wasn't until this rewatch that I realized that might be the point.

Rob's death is a weight for them all. His sudden, brutal death is something they all have to carry as they try to process it and move on. But that weight isn't being carried the same way by all of them. For as painful as it is, Hutch, Phil, and Dom don't have to carry it alone. They can rely on each other. They can lean on each other and support each other and spread the weight around to make it a little less unbearable.

Not Luke though. The weight is probably the heaviest for him out of all of them- he didn't just lose Rob, he watched him die. Watched him bleed out. He doesn't have help carrying the weight though. The people he would otherwise turn to for support blame him for the fact they have to carry this weight in the first place. And so he's left carrying this weight entirely on his own, without any help. Just an unbearable, dead weight sitting on his back with nothing to spread it around or make it easier to carry. No supports- no straps- just the weight.

The Ritual + text posts

OH I am having more feelings about the shortcut being a metaphor for blaming Luke over Rob's death. SPECIFICALLY about the implications of Dom's vacillating feelings about taking the shortcut

Dom blames Luke for Rob's death. It's not subtle. We see it when they make the memorial for Rob. We see it in the confrontation between Dom and Luke in the forest. And, within the metaphorical context, Dom is the one to insist they take the shortcut through the forest when Luke tries to tell Hutch it might not be a good idea at the outset. He pushes on through the forest on the path he finds even when it diverges from the direction that should lead them back to the lodge.

But Dom doesn't always trust the shortcut.

We see occasional moments where he voices doubts about whether taking the shortcut is a good idea- right before they go into the forest, when they're in the cabin that first night. Interestingly, the second incident happens in direct response to Luke saying he thinks staying in the forest is a bad idea and that they should head out the way they came in once morning comes.

I think that, on some level, Dom always knew that blaming Luke was wrong. That he wasn't at fault, that he was just as much a victim in what happened as everyone else. There's so much pain though, so much grief and loss, and that has to go somewhere and Luke is the easiest target. And so that's where he directs his anger and hurt, even if he doesn't always believe that's where it belongs. The path of least resistance.

The path through the forest.

I've posted about this before, but when viewing The Ritual as a metaphor for grief and trauma, the shortcut through the woods plays as an excellent metaphor for the others blaming Luke for Rob's death. It's a shortcut, an easier path than accepting Rob's death as a random, cruel, uncontrollable event. It provides a false sense of closure, getting them somewhere they want but not where they really need to be. It's a beautiful metaphor, really, that highlights the dynamics within the friend group and amplifies Luke's loneliness and detachment.

And it makes it really fucking hurt when Hutch says "It might even do us some good. [...] I think we need this."

The Ritual + random generated bot titles

So it wasn't until I rewatched The Ritual last night that the elk scene really hit me because like. It's only been six months since Rob died. Six months since Luke watched his friend get brutally murdered, skull cracked as he bled out on the liquor store floor. Six months since Luke experienced a fear and horror and trauma that most people thankfully never experience in their entire lives. Six months isn't that long between much of anything, and especially not since something like that.

And then here he is. Standing in front of an elk that has been brutally killed, blood flowing out of it as it's displayed in the trees. It's horrifying to the others, but to Luke- to Luke it's familiar. It's a reminder, it's like Rob. The way Luke hangs back from the group as they get closer to investigate. The way he smokes and looks away from the elk while the others stare. The way his voice trembles and his discomfort is so palpably beyond that of the others. The way he's so very aware of what fresh blood looks like after a kill. The way he's forced to face this reminder of the most traumatic moment of his life. And all while, he's surrounded by people he knows he can't lean on for support. Because they blame him. For all of Hutch's reassurances, Luke is very clearly painfully aware that his friends blame him for Rob's death. It's poetic in the most horrific of ways, and I love it

Something that really struck me on my most recent watch-through of The Ritual is Hutch's arrogance. There's his obvious arrogance of thinking that they could cut through the woods without issue, that nothing was wrong and everything was fine. It was an arrogance that he didn't realize until it was far too late.

He also has a mirrored interpersonal arrogance though that's absolutely FASCINATING. He seems convinced that he can simply navigate his relationship with Luke in the aftermath of Rob's death in the exact same way he always has. Just like his arrogance in the forest, nothing is wrong and everything is fine. If he refuses to address how things have changed- how the dynamics between all of them have changed, how Luke has changed- then nothing really has changed. He will simply act like nothing is wrong and nothing will be wrong despite how fractured their friend group now is, despite how much obvious pain Luke is in and how much he is so clearly struggling. And, also like the forest, Hutch doesn't realize his arrogance until it's too late. Until Luke and Dom have come to blows and Luke has forced Hutch to admit his own conflicted feelings. Until Luke has forced Hutch to admit he lied.

Everything is fine until very, very much isn't

Rewatching The Ritual for the 40-somethingth time, and some small things I love

Anyways I absolutely fucking love this movie

The Ritual brain rot is setting back in, and I got thinking about the dreams they all had in the cabin that first night. We later find out Dom dreamed of his death, and it's heavily implied that's what Hutch and Phil dreamed about too. Luke is the only odd one out, having a strange dream set in the liquor store before being marked by Möder. It makes sense, of course, that Luke didn't dream of his death- he's chosen by Möder and is the only one not to die by the end, so of course his dream was different.

Except it wasn't. Not really.

The liquor store robbery, Rob's death, Luke's freezing- all of it irrevocably changed who Luke is as a person. His world is shattered that night, and his sense of his self is shattered along with it. Luke isn't the same person after the robbery and no matter what he does, he can never go back to being that person again. That person is gone. Dead. Nothing more than a memory for Luke to mourn alongside his friend as he tries to pick the pieces back up. His friends dream of their final moments at the hands of Möder, but Luke- Luke dreams of his final moments as the person he used to be.

All four friends dream of their deaths that first night in the cabin. One of them just happened to have died six months before

The Ritual + textposts

The Ritual + screenshots of despair

So I'm rewatching The Ritual and I remember reading a review that talked about being disappointed by the ending and how it would have been more impactful if Luke had ultimately died to protect his friends. And I have. Thoughts. On that. Namely that the reviewer is Wrong

Luke not dying and instead making the active choice to fight and survive is an integral part of his character arc! He's spent the entire movie struggling with survivors' guilt and feeling like he wasn't worthy of surviving. His entire character arc is focused on accepting that he's in pain and that he's allowed to be in pain, but that he can't let that pain define and consume him! It's about him coming to accept that his trauma has irrevocably changed him but that there is still a path forward, it's just one that he has to actively choose to pursue.

Him dying would negate all of that! It would reinforce the idea that he wasn't worthy of surviving, that he deserved to be the one who died in the robbery unsteady of Rob. Maybe it's just me, but resolution of survivors' guilt through self-sacrifice seems like...a bad fuckin take, ya know?

And more than that, Luke dying would reinforce the idea that what happened to Rob was his fault, when he had a perfectly natural reaction to a frightening and highly traumatic situation! Freezing in the face of danger is a common response, and it doesn't mean that the person is then obligated to sacrifice themselves to redeem themselves or prove themselves worthy of surviving! It just means that they had a common trauma response! That's not a personal failing that needs to be redeemed through self-fucking-saceifice, ya dingus!!!

Anyways that reviewer was Wrong and Luke surviving was an impactful statement on actively choosing hope and survival in the face of immense trauma and pain. Thank you for coming to my TED talk