In my original review I laid out that I'd read a good bit about THE SOUVENIR before seeing it, but it still seemed fresh to me - as I said here too. That's my rule for myself, that I welcome "spoilers," but I try to avoid them in reviews. Nonetheless I gave away the fact you have mentioned, contradicting myself.

Your "figurine" remark, which I agree with, reminds me of the famous remark of Jane Austen who alluded to her novels as "the little bit (two inches wide) of ivory on which I work. . ."

It seems to me your description of your experience of watching the film focuses a lot on you. Again referring to my literature background, I was originally taught to focus on the work itself, and I like to focus on what goes on in the film, not so much what happens in my mind as I watch it. We could argue about this endlessly, but I think the discovery that the is something "majorly wrong' with this man" is as fascinating whether you know what it is or not. Another thing I learned as a literature student, from Alain Renoir at Berkeley especially, is that traditional audiences, such as of Beowulf or the Song of Roland or the Odyssey, always knew what happens, but their pleasure was in seeing not the WHAT but the HOW of its telling.