Set amongst the vast and sprawling landscape of New Mexico in winter, Jethica centres itself around Elena who is retreating in her grandmother’s secluded trailer. Whilst getting gas one day she runs into an old school friend Jessica, who hesitantly accepts Elena’s invitation to stay at the trailer, but while there, admits she is attempting to escape a stalker situation back in California. When Jessica’s stalker, Kevin, arrives in New Mexico and once again resumes his relentless obsession, Elena must enlist the help of forces beyond the natural world to solve this problem.
Director Pete Ohs has created a deadpan universe in which liminal space is king. The characters exist in a world made up of the inbetween, whether it’s the deserted lonely roads lined by an extensive mountain scape or the hallway of Elena’s trailer, which is in itself a transitional space. The physical locations seem to be representative of the liminality of each individual’s situation. None of the four characters, whether the living or dead, are rooted comfortably in the location they find themselves in. They are either repeatedly and aimlessly treading the same pathway every day, with no particular destination, or stuck in a sort of limbo, unsure of the direction they should take.
… His development from entitled stalker to having a happy ending after finding a friend and peace, feels reductive of the seriousness of the crime of stalking.
The stalker element of Jethica is at times questionable for its depiction of stalkers and their victims. The stalker, Kevin, is portrayed as an almost sympathetic character, presenting with possible mental illness or being neurodivergent in some way. He seems to be between an intimacy-seeking stalker in which he is driven by loneliness and isolation, which is mirrored in the desolate landscape he finds himself pacing amongst, and an incompetent suitor stalker in which he acts towards his victim insensitively due to poor social skills, and only comes to a realisation about his behaviour after Jessica tells him how he has made her feel with his obsession and stalking. Kevin is very much the butt of the joke in Jethica, exasperated by the fact it is his lisp from which the film takes its title, yet his development from entitled stalker to having a happy ending after finding a friend and peace, feels reductive of the seriousness of the crime of stalking.
Despite this, Jethica is largely a beautifully cinematic expression of loneliness and the inbetween. Tinged with the supernatural and practices of necromancy, and demonstrates the deeply preternatural bond and witchy prowess of women attempting to regain control against an entitled male-dominated world whilst also reminding audiences that everyone at some point in their lives has become ghosts, lost between the living and the unknown.
JETHICA (2022) IS AVAILABLE ON DIGITAL PLATFORMS
