The Wachowski Sisters are modern masters of the close up. Their artistic concerns are with the individual, first and foremost. In the process of building environments from the ground up, the Wachowskis provide characters the warmth of being loved and the hyper awareness of surrounding conflict in equal measure. These spatial and emotional dimensions connect us to the intricacies of various relationship dynamics. Lovers take turns making eyes at one another before inevitably becoming entangled in the throes of passion. Friends and family members give encouraging, if sometimes brutally honest assessments of our protagonists during the rough patches of their journey. Villains pick apart insecurities to a sadistic degree. And it is all captured with acuity on screen.
In The Matrix Resurrections, Lana Wachowski explores an uncanny middle ground: what Neil Patrick Harris’ villainous Analyst defines as a yearning for something one can’t have while dreading losing it all. When we first meet Neo (Keanu Reeves), he is caught in a bout of somnambulism. He leaves himself breadcrumbs to the truth of who he is, but is forced into a loop outside of his control. As the story progresses and Neo must once again shed the trappings of Thomas Anderson, he slowly becomes reacquainted with his boundary-shattering abilities. Yet he is lacking, imbalanced. Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) is missing from him and he from her. Their love for one another is buried deep within a simulation of a simulation. The quirks of their respective personalities are replaced with digital self imagery (henceforth DSI). Meaning, the tension of reuniting with a lost love carries with it the uncertainty of whether they are who you remember, and on a more personal level, whether either of you can even recognize yourselves.
Uncertainty isn’t unique to this new film, however. Pick any random moment between Neo and Trinity in the original trilogy and you will find it there. But notice how close in contact they are with one another. How Reeves and Moss fill the screen with their bodies shamelessly hot for one another. We know that Trinity’s initial concerns about Neo are born from a place of reason. Their futures are intertwined, much to Trinity’s frustration. Yet these concerns never betray the natural blossoming of their relationship. Of all the conversations about choice and destiny, the pairing of Neo and Trinity is the least volatile. In Resurrections, their separation is heartbreaking, and we are shown the unbearable sadness of yearning. A mere handshake between the two is approached with dramatic heft. Stillness and distance. Neither Thomas nor Tiffany know what’s unfurling before them. It’s a miracle that the camera sensors didn’t melt at the supernova pairing between Moss and Reeves so that we might miss out on where these characters have been for 60 years. That lost time is weaved into the cinematography.
What’s changed about the framing in Resurrections is that the passion between Trinity and Neo is practically outlawed. Deliberate cutaways to each of their DSI are emblematic of the projected selves they must maintain in the Matrix serves to keep them from rediscovering power in their identities. Rest assured, Neo and Trinity are who they’ve always been. But the Analyst takes pleasure in making the tools of his oppression known. Any deviation for Neo causes a reset, which pushes him away from the love of his life. When Neo is transported back to the Analyst’s office, the latter exploits his self-awareness for all it is worth. One thing that struck me in particular about the sessions with the Analyst is Neo’s visible anxiety. Its comorbidity with depression and suicidal ideation is textual. Reading that headspace for what it is and coupling it with the metanarrative of the script makes it obvious that Lana is channeling her own restlessness through Neo and Trinity once again.
The Matrix is, always has been, and forever will be a trans allegory. Resurrections might as well be autobiographical. Neo’s self-doubt and his inability to articulate the mindfuck of his own existence all resonate in the real world. There is even a moment where Trinity asks Neo whether he puts himself in his work and he gets flustered. The film plays mainly like an act of righteous declaration on Lana’s part and, as a trans viewer, it’s exciting to watch. But what is brilliant about the film as a whole is that it unwaveringly centers on romance. It has been reported that Lana was inspired to revisit The Matrix on the cusp of the deaths of loved ones. With that came a revitalization of old ideas and new possibilities. The romance on screen flourishes as a powerful tribute to the filmmaker’s loss. It also re-affirms the one thing we’ve known to be true about this series for over 20 years: trans people have super powers. When the narrative prioritizes a daring escape for Trinity, Lana revisits the visual metaphor of cracking a (literal) egg-shaped pod, dripping with albumen. This is somewhat of a late development in the story, used to announce the arrival of Another One in spectacular fashion; albeit, in a world that has honed its hatred for those who deviate.
Where do our lovers fit in this new world? The film answers this question firmly above all others. The answer is: anywhere and everywhere. Neo has always represented the possibilities of ditching your hellish life for a place outside the social binary. Trinity’s story in Resurrections progresses this concept to include a later, and welcome, transition to sole author of one’s own fate. Before we get there, however, Lana makes poignant observations about who and what is standing in the way of this freedom. Our entry point into these characters, again, is via close-ups, the most achingly beautiful tool in any filmmaker’s belt. It provides us a portal into the souls of the actors we see giving blood to our fantasies. Disconnected as they may be from one another, Neo and Trinity’s romance ultimately isn’t doomed, though it does struggle to survive. Neo and Trinity make it past a deluge of kamikaze agents, douchebag CEOs, and predatory psychiatrists. Past market research booklets and focus groups. SEO is no match for NEO, if you catch my drift. Even Warner Bros. is catching heat, because the threat is institutional. Violence is commanded from the top down.
Cisgenders have to create notions of us as threats to their existence in order to give themselves a reason to use the full force of the state. This property doesn’t have answers on how to fix real-world issues in their entirety, however. The Matrix and all of its sequels are video games, toys, posters–things, really. But denying the angry, sometimes bitter, and mostly hopeful messaging that drives the series is pure blue pill nonsense. What is on screen in these films contains multitudes for many trans viewers. Neo and Trinity live the experience of presenting and passing in a body you hate for people you’d rather not be around. For those of us who are in T4T relationships, Resurrections shows that in a lifetime (which may be a short span of time) you are witness to many changes in one another. There is a constant pulling apart and drawing back together. There is a real fear that neither of you may live very long. Yet you love every part of one another down to the last breath. When one of you falls, the other uses gargantuan strength to keep you both afloat.
Lana is not afraid to meet audiences with the more uncomfortable aspects of Neo and Trinity’s relationship. Confrontational as her authorial voice may be, she puts a palatable emphasis on the grief that envelops them. Ingeniously, this works in tandem with the anti-blockbuster attitude that courses through Resurrections as a whole. This isn’t to say that the film fails to deliver on spectacle. However, franchise filmmaking has skirted by for the better part of a decade without feeling obliged to say anything worthwhile. Examples to the contrary are few and far between, and the most cynical active ingredient in all of these things has been a complete overhaul of the power that nostalgia wields. And if Lana has anything else to say about new installments in popular franchises, it’s that a studio shouldn’t be allowed to drop a hefty dime on a film whose characters it has no intentions of exploring deeply.
In The Matrix Resurrections, nostalgia is tied to every fiber of both of our leads. It does not misappropriate the feeling in order to replace it with an urge to consume. The film takes the abject nature of things lost to the passage of time as seriously as if it were being written by someone who lost nearly everything all at once. Neo and Trinity are nostalgic for one another, and there is a chance neither will make it, no matter how many times we have been shown the opposite. The script hones in on the moments where they both appear to find each other again, only to pull them further apart. They are the regurgitated corpses of a megalomaniacal stooge, who rebuilt the Matrix to his every whim. “Bullet time” is repurposed to deliver an infuriating speech about the tenuousness of the love between our two leads. And as Neo persists through its grasp, at a much quicker pace than expected, the only thing standing between Trinity and a bullet to the head is the Analyst himself. What’s more horrifying than almost experiencing the death of your loved one is the nagging sensation that you are destined to relive that moment incessantly. Powerless. Lana counters the severity of this moment with a much needed burst of imagination, freeing Neo and Trinity from purgatory.
It has to be Trinity who breaks the cycle of The One. In a new film whose universe incorporates the anarchic sensibilities of free minds to create sturdier prisons, Trinity was always the key. If she got hot for Johnny Nobody it’d be a different story, but she was destined to and willingly embraced life with the systemic anomaly that is Neo. In turn, she took over part of the duty of getting the One to where they needed to be. And along with Neo, she gave her life to keep a brief era of peace. Resurrections is a literal reboot of the original film and, thus, required a new anomaly. Not one to adhere to any conventions, even her own, Lana elevates Trinity to a status she always deserved on her own, especially for being the first person we see who is able to kill an agent and get away with it. In the new film, Trinity rejects the illusion of a nuclear family where reflections on her true self are laughed off and discouraged. She is granted a slightly more fulfilling life than the original Neo, working a job that suits her interests instead of being stuck in an office somewhere. Without him, however, things were always going to feel uneven.
This isn’t a case of a relationship defining the people involved. It’s a case of taking the nostalgia of an old flame and beginning anew. Resurrections approaches the theme of rejecting one’s programming not just as a means to save one individual, but as having the potential to rewrite the whole script. The film is propelled to do so by its romance. Love does not exist in this world without consequence or heartache, but it also does not quit. When the possibility that Trinity may be happy in her new life is entertained, Neo promptly shuts it down. Not because the plot necessitates it, but because Lana knows her characters to the bone. And Trinity is anything but a submissive housewife. When she finally takes control, it’s a moment worth relishing, as is the elation of taking your partner by the hand and flying away from danger. And twirling in your leather dusters while basking in the sunset makes it even better.
