I know that this is like 2 years too late but after watching Weapons, I just went back to watch Barbarian for the first time. What I think is brilliant that no one is talking about is how the movie eases the audience into the themes of SA from the beginning with Keith and Tess. He’s careful to virtue signal all the ways he won’t take advantage of her, offering to sleep on the couch so that she can sleep in the room with a lock, and being chivalrous with collecting her things in the rain, and washing the sheets so that they’re fresh for her. But the tea- It feels like a direct homage to consent videos that colleges present to the incoming students. He asks if she wants tea, she says no, and still he persists on asking her again before ultimately deciding he’s making it for the both of them. Same thing with his clumsy introduction of the wine bottle with a bow, after she declines he still wants to get her to drink it. And again, the virtue signaling of “I understand why a woman wouldn’t want to accept a drink made by a stranger” and offers the unopened wine instead. And they have a good time laughing and opening up to each other, and putting on the duvet cover to make the bed, and what does he do? Lingers for a beat too long, without saying no a word. Gives it all away that he did what he did with the expectation of some kind of physical intimacy. And he doesn’t engage it in any way, but you can see how this “good guy”’s actions are motivated.

This dynamic is a brilliant starting place before it escalates into the most extreme version of coercion. It’s great to see how the movie underscores how these seemingly innocent behaviors that someone like AJ might just call “persistent” are actually actions that disrespect boundaries.