Resurrected: Alice White’s Matrix Journey

Or The Problem is Choice: A Spoiler-Free Review of The Matrix: Resurrections

The chokehold that these three had on our tiny, nerdy, pubescent bodies. We didn’t stand a chance.

When I was thirteen years old in the year 2003 my friends and I suddenly got really into The Matrix. All three of the movies had been released at that point and were available on DVD, so we rented them and watched them over and over again. And that was that. We were changed forever. We spent the next several years through middle school and high school completely obsessed with The Matrix.

My friends and I were the only people I knew who enjoyed the Matrix sequels. We talked about them all the time - the freeway chase, the Twins, the battle of Zion, Trinity's horrible death. We loved the Merovingian and his beautiful wife Persephone, we loved the Architect, and we loved the giant Mech suits at the end. My very best friend in the entire world Buddy Duquesne and I had a long-standing tradition every time we would do something that got our adrenaline pumping (ie. being on an inner tube behind a boat or riding a roller coaster) for some reason we would scream “Trinity! No!” or have an argument about who remembered Switch and Apoc’s final words correctly. I was always right.

In the year 2005 the small group of nerds and geeks that I called friends in high school included Buddy and our other best friend Nathaniel. We were precocious, obnoxious, hyperactive little shitheads with too much energy and too much brainpower between us to contain. We did after-school improv classes together, went to comedy summer camp together, played a ton of video games together, and somehow at one point convinced our drama teacher to let us make a parody Matrix video for what was supposed to be a music video assignment. We were inspired by LegendaryFrog and Knox, early video creators who published their Matrix parodies on Ebaum’s World and Newgrounds. God, I’m so old. 

We were supposed to be learning basic filmmaking techniques and make a two minute long music video; instead we subjected our entire beginners drama class to watch a 10 minute long video where we reenacted The Matrix at a local playground. We somehow figured out how to tint the whole screen green and add rain effects for the final battle scene. One of our jokes in our parody video had Buddy as Neo pretending to be unconscious on a table while I leaned over him and screamed in his face that he couldn’t be dead because he owed me five dollars. Truly A+ comedy. Revolutionary. Nathaniel played Agent Smith and punched Buddy in the stomach a bit too hard during one of our fight scenes that we were able to film inside of Buddy’s dad’s work office building on a Saturday. We climbed on the roof even. I mean, we went all out.

I played Trinity, because of course I did. I was the only girl and Trinity was the best. I was obsessed with her from the moment she stood up from the desk and put her hands behind her head before she kicked everyone’s ass and punched a bunch of cops.

All of this demonstrates that The Matrix means a lot to me, it means a lot to Buddy, it meant a lot to all of us. It was one of the first times we saw a rated R film, it was an early example of a movie that could be action-packed and intelligent, made us think, and also made us stand up and cheer when somebody got a big gun out and flipped in the air. I have spent a lot of my life thinking about, writing about, and talking about The Matrix. So when they announced that there was going to be the fourth film, I believe my first reaction was “I would give up my firstborn for a chance to be involved in that movie.” Not that I’m ever going to have kids, but I meant every word.

I had some confused and confusing years, but I am now confidently out as a bisexual woman. Sometimes I tell people that my bisexual awakening was Pirates of the Caribbean, Lord of the Rings, or The Mummy depending on who I’ve been thinking about lately, but truly the answer has to be The Matrix. I got a hold of The Matrix: Reloaded on DVD and rewound and re-watched the Zion party scene and Trinity and Neo’s sex scene over and over and over again. Just on repeat all the time. Some thing about the unabashed nudity and sensuality of the dancing and the music and the connection between our two heroes, with the clearest example of tender loving sex I had ever seen on screen, it even shows the moment of a female orgasm, which I had never seen depicted before. Game changer.

I know it’s weird. I’m being vulnerable here. They are truly two beautiful people.

That brings me to the release of the newest Matrix film, a movie that is explicit in its queerness and absolutely stunning in its embracing of unconventional love stories. Lana Wachowski has brought to life a colorful, sensual, thrilling adventure tale that feels both like a tribute and also a sequel to a trilogy that changed cinema as we know it. And it does so while being extremely gay, very trans, and completely guileless while telling a story that could easily be cynical. I think that’s the best part of this movie for me, it is earnest and sweet and fun, not angry or grumpy or critical. It asks you to think about your world and what is real and what programming in your head you can choose to override on your own, and it lets you believe that that is something that is possible, that people can change and make their own choices and live a life and a path that brings them closest to love and joy.

Look at how incredibly homosexual all of these people are. No straights in sight.

Neo has been resurrected and is living a life in the Matrix with no memory of the previous events of his life. It takes sixty years for the real world to find him. A team led by Jessica Henwick as “Bugs” and a reborn version of Morpheus (played by the absolutely fabulous Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) finally track him down and break him back out. The ever-romantic Neo’s very first priority is getting Trinity out, and the main bulk of the plot of the rest of the movie is their quest to find her and get her to leave by choice. Choice is such an important part of the film, no one can be forced out, you have to choose to take the red pill, choose to leave the Matrix, choose your path and fate and destiny. The obvious metaphor here is consent and how important that is in relationships, but there’s a good argument for the idea of Choice to be part of the overarching trans metaphor throughout.

When he asks why it took so long to find him, Neo is told that the machines were able to change his appearance. He appears different to others when they see him versus how he sees himself. It’s called his “digital self-image” which is in direct competition to a phrase we learn in the original film “residual self-image.” The world of The Matrix acknowledges that how you see yourself and how others define you can be completely different, but the one you choose is the important one. To anyone that might doubt that the Wachowskis were writing a trans allegory from the beginning, I ask you to look again.

Also go look up why Switch is called Switch. The answer will not surprise you.

I want to keep the spoilers to a minimum, but there is a part where Trinity has to make a choice. My girl is able to see through to the truth and the heart of the matter, ignoring what her eyes are seeing and trusting her heart and her intuition to guide the way, just as she was capable of doing from the very beginning of the first film. Neo understands early on in the new film that the point of the story of The Matrix is and always has been that even when you think you’re given a choice, you’ve already made the choice in your head. You know the right thing to do, and the right thing to do is always to follow your intuition and your heart, to chase the girl, to save the one you love. Neo doesn’t use guns anymore, and his most powerful force at his disposal is now a defensive shield rather than super powered kicks and punches. Critics are saying that this Matrix movie is more of a romance than the others, but here’s the truth- The Matrix is and always has been a love story, the fourth one just understands it more clearly and leans into it. It’s very tender while still maintaining a high action, time and mind bending, practical and digital effects heavy experience.

I saw the movie on opening day with Buddy Duquesne at my side. It was like bringing our lives together in full circle, both of us grown up and possessing more understanding of the world and our place in it. I also have a name for my sexuality and am mostly out to the public, and now at age thirty Buddy and I both have more confidence in our understanding of the movie and the environment it was made in. Also now that we get to know Lana Wachowski as who she really is, we also get to see The Matrix for what it really is. A love story. A coming out story. An exploration of a world where you can make your digital self image look how you feel you should look, and when it is altered or changed for you, when somebody else decides who you should be as the machines did for Neo and Trinity, you have the opportunity to break free and find who you truly are. To free your mind. To find your own sense of control. And that is what The Matrix: Resurrections has brought to the table. That is the gift that has been given to us this Christmas. I’m very grateful and very impressed with the movie. 

I’d give it a solid 7.9 out of 10, with special mentions to the outstanding performances of Henwick and Abdul-Mateen II, the incredible special effects, and Carrie-Ann Moss’ arms.