A collection of vignettes tell the stories of women traveling, often alone, who appear to be on the verge of catastrophe.
The scenes here have subtle echoes back and forth, with little details – Volkswagen Beetles, rain, mud, men in uniform – linking them together, as well as the larger theme of the warnings women are given to avoid traveling alone and the way the ever present threat of violence curtails their freedom. Except for one scene of an autopsy and another that refers to a woman’s body found in a river, all of the vignettes take us up to the moment of threat but never into or beyond it – we don’t know that anything terrible has happened to most of the protagonists, though it’s certainly implied. And the dangerous men here are not the anonymous strangers who are usually the subject of the warnings – they’re policemen, boyfriends, husbands, garage mechanics, and motel clerks. The story delivers a mix of unease and outrage.