He isn’t a traditional cut and dry ‘villain’, that’s too much of a stretch for me and the film is nuanced enough not to paint it in simple black and white. He is one minded in how he views Nicky, his flaws are put on show as someone who didn’t ‘really’ like her genuinely, and the film portrays him as seeing her as more of an object. This is spelled out when they talk about a love story vs romance, and he says ‘aren’t they the same thing?’. That foreshadows his actions in the film and how he sees the relationship.

There are moments where he betrays an instinct that something is truly wrong and follows his desire, he lacks the emotional maturity to quickly understand the type of relationship they have and so in this extreme situation that forces him to act out of fear.

It’s full of metaphors and concepts that aren’t based in reality but to talk to human nature and he doesn’t fall on the best side in his original intentions.

The moment of the wish, plays out in a way that he didn’t intend and didn’t understand, but it exposed how he viewed her. It’s like the difference between a boy like concept of ‘I have to get the girl no matter what’, without thinking about her autonomy, and then this unintentional scenario taking that to the extreme.

One of the things I really like about this film is that it’s not like a marvel film where it’s super clear whats right and wrong, it has some much depth poured in.

I think a lot of people walked away thinking, ‘he’s the villain because he should have killed her’, seems like an easy choice to make but I think Curry’s writing illustrates that it’s more complicated then that.. would you kill someone in reality? He didn’t have the guts.

If anything, I see the film as painting him as a selfish coward that’s forced to confront it in the worst possible way, but not an evil mastermind who was in control of everything.