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Recently I watched Whatever, a French film from 1999 which itself was a adaptation of Michel Houellebecq's debut novel Extension of the Domain of Struggle.
The main premise of the film is the protagonist, simply dubbed 'Our Hero' is a middle aged computer programmer who lives a unfulfilled and isolated life and throughout the film constantly muses over his lack of a romantic union with a women and comments how he hasn't had a sexual encounter in over two years since his divorce from his former wife.
The film opens with Our Hero going through his daily life, detailing the uneventful and boring routine while also making note of his car which was apparently stolen. Our Hero, preferring to rather convince himself that to have a car in the big city is pointless, decides not to report it stolen and quickly forgets about it, opting instead to take the public transit. Our Hero's sexual desires are further extrapolated on when a female co-worker, whom he has taken an interest in, begins to take an interest to Our Hero. However, he decides not to take the initiative to form a deeper relationship with the women, citing his disinterest and theorises that she would not reciprocate his intertest in her.
The theme of sexual frustration in the film takes centre stage once Our Hero goes on a business trip with a fellow male co-worker named Tisserand, who Our Hero later finds out is even more hopeless in the realm of sexual experience than him, as Tisserand is a 28-year-old virgin who's constant attempts to woo and attract the opposite sex seemingly always ends in catastrophic failure. The first example of this is during the train ride to the business meeting the two were sent out on, Tisserand attempts to obtain the phone number of a women which, inevitably, ends in rejection. Later, during the holiday season, Our Hero succeeds in persuading Tisserand to accompany him to a social gathering at a club in the French countryside on New Years Eve.
Throughout the night, Tisserand of course never gives up his quest on securing a love partner, going so far to dance passionately with a female club-goer which, despite Tisserand's obvious effort and dance moves, is ultimately shot down, leaving his efforts wasted and himself stricken with resentment, making his way back to Our Hero and on the way coming across an interracial couple, which seems to double Tisserand's bitterness and frustration. While observing the couple embracing each other, Our Hero convinces Tisserand, while clearly drunk, to take revenge on the couple by murdering them. Tisserand, again easily convinced, agrees and sets out to do so, with a blade gifted to him by Our Hero which he will use to kill the couple. However, Tisserand couldn't muster up the courage to carry out the double homicide, so him and Our Hero call it a night.
After awakening in a drunken stupor, Our Hero attempts to contact Tisserand at a payphone but to no avail.
The next day at work, Our Hero is called to an announcement by the secretary who was informed of Tisserand's death due to a car accident and informs the office, shocking everyone but leaving Our Hero emotionless.
The events following Tisserand's sudden death send Our Hero down a mental spiral and eventual breakdown leading to his stay at a mental hospital.
The story of Our Hero ends with his mental state apparently bettered and motivates him to attend a dance class, ending with him dancing with a female dance partner.
The deeper themes of the film and the novel are very obvious throughout. The themes of sexual frustration, isolation and loneliness, along with Post-Fordist work culture and the suffocation of it's effects.
Though the main theme is of course the extension of capitalism into the intimate which it's main cause being the triumph sexual liberation movements which swept the Western world during the the twentieth century, which in turn created a market economy in the private domains of intimacy. And as there are rich and poor in market economies, extended into the sexual domain created a class of promiscuous sexual achievers and sexual paupers (or in more modern slang, 'Chads' and 'Incels'). A clear example of the latter is of course the character of Tisserand, which is also a very impressive prediction of the incel archetype and could be considered the 'proto-incel' in media, a person who's personal sexual failures since adolescence has consumed his life, and throughout the film mopes about his frustration of his still remaining virgin status nearing thirty-years-old. His eventual descent into a homicidal fantasy is also an eery prediction of violence committed by so called 'incels', while a very small number, still presents a very impressive prediction of the resentment manifested in the sexually repressed that turns to violence, all due to the capitalist extension into sex and intimacy.