Aubrey Plaza’s Grief, Framed by Monsters: How The Gorge Became Her Metaphor for Loss

Aubrey Plaza compared her grief to a gorge: between two cliffs, a terrifying abyss, alive with malignant forces that press from every angle. “[It feels] like grief,” she confided, voice steady yet jagged. “A giant ocean of awfulness… monster people… always there.” More vivid than any scene, the metaphor demands we explore grief not as absence, but as an oppressive presence.

Plaza doesn’t merely speak of loss—she sets it ablaze with imagery that no one hears and remains unchanged.

Horror as a Mirror to Loss

In distilling grief through The Gorge, she tapped into a universal anxiety: that sorrow is not silent, but monstrous. “Sometimes I want to dive into it… sometimes I try to get away from it,” she told Poehler. The longing to both succumb and flee renders grief’s pull both alluring and crushing—existence becoming a negotiation with pain.

Film, for Plaza, becomes less escapism than a place to confront the grotesque complexity of emotion.

Art That Survives and Sustains

Director Scott Derrickson heard more than praise in her words—he heard resonance. “How could I not be moved?” he said. Her reflection reaffirmed an artist’s highest hope: that his work helps someone define what they couldn’t name. He acknowledged it wasn’t unique to The Gorge, but her sincerity rendered it especially poignant.

Her grief, cloaked in cinematic metaphor, foregrounds how art and personal sorrow can entwine—offering language where none seemed possible.