*Spoilers for Love and Thunder.*
Back when I first got into the MCU and was writing Marvelous Wednesdays posts, I wrote about both Thor and Jane, but I never got around to their relationship. In the first two Thor movies, I mean, their relationship was nice, it was amusing. But there were so many other parts of the MCU to write about, and they didn’t grab me as a pair.
Cut to Love and Thunder. Not only are Jane and Thor great, separately and together, in the main plot of that movie, but there’s also a short flashback montage of their relationship that does more to inform their story as a couple than the entirety of the first two Thor movies. I love just seeing Thor and Jane going out on dates or staying in to watch a movie, and the film does a wonderful job of showing the soft, gradual way their relationship fell apart. As per Korg’s narration, both of them begin to dwell increasingly on the fact that Thor is nigh-immortal and Jane is not. Rather than watch that lead to a dramatic “I can’t do this anymore!” confrontation, we instead see how both throw themselves into their work—each trying to save the world in their own way—to avoid those painful thoughts, and as that work takes priority, the two of them drift until the day Thor comes home to find a note that Jane has left. It’s a comic-book story involving a millennia-old alien with superpowers, but it’s also such a quiet, human story where both make mistakes that hurt themselves as much as they hurt the other person. Masterfully done—fans can argue about the film all that they want, but honestly, Love and Thunder is worth it just for that montage.
Getting into Thor and Jane’s reunion after she’s granted powers through wielding Mjölnir, the pairing just fires on all cylinders. The way both try to play it cool despite how thunderstruck (Thor pun) they are to see each other is cute. I love their interactions over Jane working on her hero skills—mainly her shaky catchphrase game, hehe. It’s great to watch them fight together, how they back each other up and impress one another in the field. Thor’s clumsy admission that he wants to “feel shitty” about her, believing that the pain of heartbreak/loss is worth it to love her and have her love, is sweet.
Then Jane drops the bombshell on him: she has stage four breast cancer. She turned to Mjölnir in the hope that its power could heal her, but while the hammer grants her strength, vitality, and power while she’s using it, the effort is sapping her body and limiting her ability to fight the cancer. The first time they got together, they knew their relationship had an expiration date, but now, that date is coming up a lot faster than either of them expected.
This is a heavy trial for both of them. Moreso for Jane, obviously, since she’s the one who’s sick. And while Thor begs her to stop using Mjölnir and save what strength she has left, Jane makes the choice that she’d rather go out fighting, especially fighting alongside and protecting the man she loves. Meanwhile, Thor, who’s been dealt a lot of personal losses in recent years and has quailed at the idea of enduring any more, sadly accepts Jane’s choice and cherishes what brief time they have left together.
In the final fight, when Gorr is on the brink of achieving his goal of destroying the gods, it is Thor’s love for Jane that finally moves the bitter, vengeful man’s heart. Facing his end, Thor spends what might be his last moments holding a dying Jane in his arms, and Gorr finds the strength to choose love over revenge. It sounds corny when I write it out, and I suppose it is a little, but I don’t care. It’s gorgeous.
One more thing I want to mention. I saw a comment that Love and Thunder is Natalie Portman’s best Thor movie because it’s the first to treat her as more than Thor’s love interest. What’s really interesting is that, in large part by giving Jane her own story and agency, the movie also gives us the best Thor/Jane relationship we’ve ever had. Romances are better when both characters are explored in complex ways and given weight in the story—who knew?
No comments:
Post a Comment