Exploring the encounter between feminism, film theory, and the psychoanalysis of Melanie Klein, this book argues for the importance of ‘negativity’ as a key concept through which to develop a feminist cultural politics responsive to the violence and pessimism of a new generation of women’s films. Revisiting questions of spectatorship and subjectivity, this key text radically rethinks the significance of female destructiveness for feminism and for film theory. It examines the ways that violence shapes cinematic and psychic structures and identifications, presenting the reader with new terms for thinking about film and femininity, feminism and subjectivity. With chapters on films such as The Piano (Jane Campion 1993), Crush (Alison Maclean 1992), and Breaking the Waves (Lars von Trier 1996), this book provides a timely intervention into an enduring but controversial area of contemporary feminist theory.