By Divya Konkimalla

A girl watching a movie and a man who plays make-believe, falls in infatuation and fascination with a woman for her drive, never viewing them as risks.

By the time I decide what movie to watch, my dinner is cold. Every single platform has ads now, so I’m barely in the mood. A tad bored and ready to hole up in my room, I aimlessly scroll through my roommates’ 17 platforms and grasp onto a seeming-classic from 2007 I’ve never heard of it before:

“Watching the Detectives”

The movie opens with a black-and-white scene, which, embarrassingly, makes me want to turn it off. But then Neil, played by Cillian Murphy, smiles and I blush, hard. I keep the movie on and start poking at my cold food.

The main character, Neil, is a man who plays make-believe and it’s frowned upon by society. He is the owner of a failing video store, getting beat out by big-brand stores. The movie forces watchers to ask, “Why would anyone be like Neil? You should be a real man and live in the real world.”

Soon, my food is forgotten when Violet walks into Neil's video store. It’s a dingy garbage green-colored room, brightened with a blunt, short-haired woman in a warm purple top. She looks cool without even trying. She doesn’t look at every man she meets as a prospective love interest or potentially a character she could be entertained by. She doesn’t need that though – I don’t need that. She has friends; she’s exotic, curious, and free. She wears long black shorts which my mom would’ve forced me to wear growing up, but it makes her look surprisingly pleasant and desirable to Neil. Neil is just like me. She exudes confidence and flirtiness. Without. Even. Trying. Neil and I like Violet.

Her layered jewelry sits perfectly without getting tangled in her side-strapped bag. She wears low rise Converse with the socks sitting perfectly, without sliding off her angles. These are the icing on the cake. I love these details, which only movies can capture because they never work in real life. I have truly only seen these movie details in the thousands of films I’ve seen rather than the thousands of days I’ve lived. But Violet… She pulls off the movie magic well. Surprisingly. Violet is different as she fills a room with amusing escapades. She has a spontaneity that always ends up okay. With every decision she is faced with, she always goes for the ‘scenic route,’ one that would bring her the most joy, not just ease.

Even in the first solo interaction between the two, Violet pulls him in with impulse. She goes to dinner with Neil for some free food, and for the chance of messing with him. Neil, a notably broke video store owner, is being cleared out by a chain video store and is entranced by Violet. He easily complies even though she continuously messes with him the whole night. Somehow they end up breaking into the competitor’s store to swap half the CDs into different cases. They don’t even think about the poor unassuming minimum wage worker probably forced to clean up their mess. All they see is what they benefit from each interaction. All Violet wants is to tastefully frolic throughout life by doing, not watching on the side.

Violet inspires Neil–  and I – without even trying. She goes out with Neil for a drink and a goodnight kiss but won’t give him her phone number. Her power supersedes the basic Hollywood excitement and appeal of a sexy woman, although no one could argue Lucy Liu isn’t gorgeous. Her personality is something people, including Neil and I, are drawn to.

Violet checks on her neighbor’s many cats, and has many friends but seems unattached and unaffected. She refuses to be entertained by a TV. She forces Neil to turn off the TV while watching an NBA final game, and forces him to go outside and play basketball instead. She can make anything she sees in a movie reality – and so could I.

Violet makes me believe I can be elaborate. She makes me want to keep secrets, which I never seem to be able to do. Violet is me, or me in 5 years, in place whilst standing by who I am.

I want to dress like her. No — I want to feel the way she feels in her clothes in my own. I have my curves. I have my body, and if I dressed effortlessly myself, I’d never feel comfortable. But I want to feel free and light, and not too loud or out of place in my clothes. Violet seems to be in place, comfortably...

Now Lucy does generally fit an American body beauty standard herself, but that wouldn’t crack the top ten things I would use to describe her. She has a belly laugh and finds humor in tricks, not only around Halloween. She moves far away from the standard of what’s socially acceptable, but she embraces it. She oozes herself: playful, unserious, and purely intriguing.

Violet makes me want to play make-believe in a way that's fun and takes things a little too far, like my own humor. In one instance, Violet decides to have her friends pretend to be detectives in the case of them breaking into the big brand video store. However, the scene turns dramatic when Neil begins to get riled up. He is on the verge of a breakdown when the three of them erupt in laughter. She is playful and loud, and shows me that oozing my own character is fun, and doesn’t have to be feared. Being fun and wearing slightly ugly clothes is clearly not a bad thing. Violet is living proof that having fun in life is clearly not a bad thing.

Forget money, responsibility, commitments, MEN, and just live. There doesn’t have to be standards. I don’t have to find entertainment in movies; I can find it in life by living it. I can take risks without viewing them as risks, just like Violet.

I want to play basketball and slam dunk without a thought about my tight shoes, my loose pants, my skin-tight shirt, or my boobs.

Nothing of this is jealousy. I don’t want to be Lucy Liu as Violet. It’s admiration for her view on life and her view on risks, or a lack thereof. This is what people call being and getting inspired, I think. I yearn to have my icing on my life, not just my cake. I want to be able to scheme something as big as a casino robbing scene just like Violet.

The movie closes in a classic car-on-the-road montage, and I get closure. I can be Violet. I can now be the person who enacts change and sporadicity rather than the person who follows. I am no longer Neil, I am Violet.

Instead of my usual, anxiety-ridden sleep, I fall asleep with an excitement to see myself in Violet, and Violet in me. I think if we could plausibly hang out, we would complement each other.

As soon as I awake, I start spewing about the movie I watched last night to my mother, but she doesn't want to hear it. She's missing out though. She is never going to know Violet the way I know her now. I know the person I want to be. I know the energy I want to have.

Violet is much more than a character. She walks through my mind everyday, telling me -– screaming at me -– to get off my couch and do anything else, without viewing everything as a risk. ■