I've watched this movie dozens of times, starting from when I was in high school to the present day. It's always what I tell people is my favorite, favorite movie.

Every piece of this is stitched together very lovingly; the establishing shots in the beginning that set the tone for the main character's mental health. The beats when a line connects with her. The soundtrack. The costume design.

This movie doesn't hit with everyone. I relate a lot as a woman who lives under the assumption that her life is easy because she's pretty. But Mavis struggles a lot here--it's implied, at various points, that she has depression, alcoholism, psychopathy, an eating disorder, and/or autism. She's deficient in her ability to relate to people normally, instead playing copycat the way many autistic girls tend to do. Wear the dress, do the makeup, people will like you. Well, until they start listening to you talk.

She doesn't behave like a good person, but that's beside the point. Being praised your entire life for your looks and intelligence can create a veritable Jenga tower of a woman. She's arrested at the point in her development when she suffered a miscarriage. Buddy echoes this when he tells her "the rest of us changed, you just got lucky".

Oh, it also includes my favorite line read in cinema history: "don't bother, it is silk. It's FUCKED".