Glad he enjoyed it, i'll try it eventually- however.
Just from a distance, even before seeing the movie, I wish Peter moved on from temu-MJ in retrospect; I get she was a rider (she was 100%), they been through it together, but having Sadie play someone else who helps him heal just as a friend most of the entire movie. Planting the seeds of a new bond for him but not moving too quickly.
Have her in the background first 30 minutes, show her doing her own thing, coming and going, they say hi, have witty banter, cheeky stuff in between the dark storyline. Smallville’s Clois level energy.
Give her destinations, passing him by, curate a sense of purpose for her, so she doesn’t just exist to be the replacement for MJ; she’s got shit going on too, Peter still has to process the trauma.
But she is patient. Even before she figures out the secret, she sees his integrity and character.
Otherwise, establish she & Peter know each other prior in-between NWH & BND, skip the meet cutes. The neighbor to lovers trope, they actually did the neighbor thing as a gag in the movie where the woman tried to make small talk about them being on the same floor and he brushes her off awkwardly, I made the pitch before seeing the film but im glad the movie inadvertently illustrated my point.
He’s resisting her hints, help, counsel for most of the movie (a good 55%, just so the blue-balling doesn’t piss off the audience too much through peter being a blockhead); just to reinforce his dysfunctional avoidant and isolationist martyrdom.
And part of the arc is him moving on first in a similar fashion to the movie but the friendship is a vehicle to that outcome; accepting who this woman is, not who MJ was. Because reasonably moving on isn’t going to be easy like a light-switch:
Let’s highlight his track record:
Aunt May’s death & her dying right in front of him, Goblin’s terror on his life in less than 3 days, having fought at the Avengers Compound in a deadass war, losing Tony & watching him… die right in front of him. The trauma of being dusted to death, the trauma Mysterio put him through/ getting hit by that train; fighting a Warlord on Titan, etc. etc. etc.
Peter’s rejection of her wouldn’t be justified, but his blockheadedness would be thoroughly rationalized & made clear that he's got more going on than just Ned & Mj not being there.
Just so the audience doesn’t trivialize the true weight of his burden just because hes rejecting her best efforts, which is a bad look.
Because at the end of the day, she doesn’t truly know him, or the full scale of what he’s been through.
TL;DR Committing to the consequences of the spell vs tailing MJ & Ned here and there; then she gets involved anyway tholrough plot which regresses the NWH sendoffs. which even the trailers didn’t sell to me, but I get it.
But my thing is, even before, watching the movie: What’s the destination? Because we can’t keep him stuck, even actual spiders eventually move their web-domains to different locations.
Again, make her a blatant variant of Ursula Ditkovitch or something, homemade chocolate cake & “a glass of milk” meme and everything. No kissing, just chemistry, warmth, and connection. Not fixing all his issues in one movie but him finding some meaning beyond his memory of a past life, beyond the spider.
Just a little bit more progress but with something more tangible & evident that he actually gains a life by the end of the movie but after he moves on; I get what BND is going for. its in the title of the movie. But NWH was already such a good threshold for a fresh start to soft regress without a tangible storytelling takeaway would be a waste. Its interesting.
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