Sumith Prasad
Written and directed by Megalyn Echikunwoke, Netflix’s short film ‘Weathering’ follows Gemina May, a journalist who is pregnant. Gemina ends up suffering from a miscarriage and loses her baby. The miscarriage affects her life severely as struggles to pull herself together while recuperating on her own. Starring Alexis Louder as Gemina, the journalist starts to believe that someone is trying to kill her, which leads her to the individual who attacks her. The enthralling short film ends with puzzling revelations. If you are intrigued about the same as we are, let us share our detailed take on it! SPOILERS AHEAD.
Weathering Plot Synopsis
Gemina is a journalist who is sharing her life with Shawn. The couple has been expecting their baby for a while. During her labor, Gemina suffers from a miscarriage due to complications in pregnancy. Although she wakes and enquires about her child, she doesn’t receive any good news from the health professionals. Shawn breaks up with Gemina after the miscarriage, blaming the latter for the miscarriage and the death of their unborn baby. After he departs from her life, she goes through their pictures all alone while recuperating in her home. The journalist’s mother arrives at her house one day to check in on her daughter.
Gemina’s mother blames her for going to a hospital for the delivery. She explains how the journalist was born at their house with the help of a midwife, without any complications. As far as Gemina’s mother is concerned, hospitals are not an ideal place for women like her, possibly because of the discrimination or disparity a Black woman is expected to deal with at a healthcare institution. Gemina tries to defend herself by letting her mother know that it was Shawn who took her to the hospital. Within a few days, Gemina sees someone in a hoodie standing in front of her door at night.
While Gemina takes a bath, she gets apparently attacked, only for James to arrive at the home to take care of her. The journalist tells him that someone is trying to kill her. James takes a look at the rooms of the house to make sure that no one is there to hurt her. After ensuring that there isn’t anyone at the house apart from them, he approaches Gemina sexually without her consent, only for her to resist him. James then storms off from her house.
Weathering Ending: Who Tries to Kill Gemina?
Even after James went through the rooms of her house to find no one else at the place, Gemina continues to get attacked by the unknown person in the hoodie. She gets dragged from her bed to her swimming pool, only for her to fight for her life. While in the pool, she takes a look at the person’s face, only to see herself. The person then disappears, making her realize that the person who has been trying to kill her is nothing but her imagination. It isn’t a coincidence that the entity created by her imagination has her own face.
After losing her baby, Gemina must be thinking that she is her own worst enemy. She must be blaming herself for not taking adequate care during the term of pregnancy although she has done everything she can. As she blames herself, Shawn leaves her, adding to the blame. The trauma of losing both Shawn and their baby in two different ways must have led her to believe that she is the “problem.” Such a belief must have made her fight against herself, which gets manifested as the person in the hoodie who tries to kill her. By having such an imaginary killer, Gemina is punishing herself for everything that has happened in her life.
After realizing that she is trying to kill herself, Gemina starts to make progress emotionally. She puts an end to fighting herself as she realizes that the system is to blame. The journalist must have understood that she is just one of the thousands and thousands of Black women who are denied access to adequate medical care and services, which leads them to life-threatening complications during pregnancy. Gemina had to fight with her doctor to make her voice heard but still, she got dismissed, which eventually led to her miscarriage. She realizes that there are more Black women like her, whose concerns are dismissed by the system to push her to self-doubt and self-harm.
As the short film ends, Gemina writes an article about the need for protecting Black women. She gets inspired by her own experiences to write the same as she may not want another Black woman to experience what she experienced due to the unfair treatment she received from the people around her, including her doctor and boyfriend.
What is the Meaning of Gemina’s Dream?
While trying to get better after suffering from a miscarriage, Gemina sees a dream in which she is giving birth to a snake. She also sees herself in the middle of a dinner table as an exquisite dish for the guests to carve and eat. Since Gemina sees the dream while she is doubting and harming herself, dreaming of giving birth to a snake can be her way of thinking that she isn’t worthy enough to give birth to a human being. Since Shawn leaves her for not giving birth to their child, her inability must be manifesting as the delivery of a snake rather than a human baby.
The reasoning behind Gemina dreaming of herself as a meat dish can be similar. After losing her baby, the journalist must have been feeling worthless, which can be why she is seeing herself as a dish rather than a human being. People carving her meat is also similar to how the doctors “cut” her while she was in labor without caring for her adequately. The people around Gemina, whether it be Shawn or her doctor, haven’t really acknowledged her as a person with feelings and reasonings when they tried to impose their will on her. Such actions must have made her think that she is not different from an animal that had to accept a butcher’s will.
