Movie review
November 11, 2016 · 121 min · NR
Woke Score
Lower is better
Breakdown
These are the editorial factors and ratings behind our score for The Love Witch.
Woke representation / casting
Cast is overwhelmingly white and chosen to match the deliberate 1960s-inspired Technicolor aesthetic and small California town setting. No forced diversity, race or gender swaps, or identity-based casting that feels mismatched to the story or period style.
Woke political dialogue
Some voiceover and character lines critique how patriarchy shapes women’s self-worth around male approval and turns men into fragile or obsessive figures, but these stay inside the protagonist’s delusional, campy worldview rather than functioning as direct lectures.
Identity-driven story themes
The core premise and arc revolve around a woman’s identity, sexuality, and self-worth being warped by patriarchal expectations and her own need for male love, with recurring emphasis on distinctly female biological experiences and emotional labor in romance.
Western institutional / cultural critique
The film critiques traditional gender roles and romantic ideals by showing patriarchy driving women toward self-objectification and men toward toxic entitlement or weakness. It challenges these norms through satire without broad attacks on Western institutions, Christianity, or capitalism.
Review
The Love Witch is a 2016 horror-comedy about Elaine, a glamorous modern witch who uses spells and potions to force men into obsessive love, only for her magic to cause madness, violence, and death. She relocates to a quiet California town hoping for real connection but repeats destructive patterns tied to her past. The story uses bold retro styling to examine female desire, patriarchal damage to women, biological female experiences in magic, and how idealized romance harms both sexes through character choices and plot results.
Woke character or canon changes
Not relevant. This is an original story with no adaptations or historical reinterpretations.
Anti-woke backlash and complaints
Almost no public debate or complaints framing the film as woke, propagandistic, or pushing identity politics. Reception centered on style and satire; any criticism stayed minor and came mostly from progressive circles objecting to its biological focus rather than from viewers calling it too woke.
Creator track record context
Anna Biller, the film’s central creator, has a clear history of making consciously feminist work that examines misogyny, female desire, and gender power dynamics from inside a woman’s perspective, including public statements about her intent to create such films. Supporting crew show no comparable patterns.
Production
