I thought it was fascinating how stylized it was and how. . .grotesque it was, in a lot of ways, and how it did edge over into satire sometimes, but it was never satirizing them, the women it put at the center of bizarre world. I feel like I just keep repeating myself when I talk about this movie, but they were soreal, so incredibly human, just as you say. It made them and the movie so incredibly compelling, in the midst of all its grotequeries.

Sarah definitely became the center of the movie, despite some extremely fierce competition. I agree entirely that she was the only one out of the three of them to really understand herself: she played games and she put on acts put I think beneath it all she knew who she was. Whereas Abigail was all an act, with no solid ground behind it for her to stand on, and Anne tried so hard to be herself and yet never managed to match what she wanted to any true understanding of who she was.

Exactly--the men were there but tangential, especially emotionally: the movie couldn't even muster enough feeling about them to hate them. They were foolish or ridiculous or bland, but never really evil: they were mostly just set dressing. In fact, they were treated the way that women are often treated in movies about men (i.e., most of them), which was completely brilliant.