WLR #16
Strange Darling
Directed by JT Mollner
A woman in red hospital scrubs, her face smeared with mascara and tears runs through high fields. Music swells, dramatic, painfully so, as if it knows something we don't about her fate. Everything is in slow motion, what’s left of her bloody right ear dangling. Behind her, a man with a great mustache, dressed in red flannel, is shooting at her with a rifle. She hides, finds a handle of cheap vodka in a ditch in the woods left behind by high school kids. She bites down on the scrubs and pours the vodka on her gashed ear, wincing in pain as we wince with her.
She composes herself, continues to run. She enters the heart of the woods until it gives way to a Victorian house, standing alone, with outdoor speakers broadcasting Bigfoot warnings into the empty air for no apparent reason. The music cuts off abruptly and the disorientation becomes as real as it is necessary. Only six minutes in—after title credits the most thrilling opening sequence of the year, after an offbeat and violent language that refuses to play by the rules, after a missing ear—we are confronted with the inevitable comparison to Blue Velvet.
But this film, Strange Darling, doesn’t merely invite the comparison; it earns it. A transgressive, breakneck thriller that never skimps on fun for the sake of the offbeat and vice versa. The film juggles the balance beautifully, never sacrificing one for the other, and in doing so, it becomes its own beast—a b-movie Blue Velvet, if you will. The music, composed by Craig DeLeon, is insane and essential. It shifts effortlessly between blown-out organs, icy synths, and LaLa Land jazz pianos interspersed with Lana Del Rey-esque interludes sung by Z Berg. The score has a knack for placement too, when to bring which sound to which scene and more importantly, when to use silence. A brilliant, brilliant fucking score.
The performances are great too, sharp and unsettling, grounding the film even as it spins a bit out of control down the stretch. And it does lose itself, just a bit, but in all the right ways. The film even passes the six-laugh test, a metric that most so-called comedies fail to meet these days. The ending may divide audiences, an ending that refuses to bend to sentimentality or easy resolutions. But it’s an essential piece to a perfect movie. With the weight, with the unyielding nature of the ending, more validity was lent to the fun cat-and-mouse game of murder that played out on screen, because through her eyes, you were made to see all of the victims laid waste to beforehand, before we met the Lady and the Demon.
“Sometimes, I don’t see humans. I see devils.”
Four stars
Blink Twice
Directed by Zoe Kravitz
Zoe Kravitz's directorial debut, starring Channing Tatum, is a misfire on every level. The plot feels tired—a mishmash of Saltburn, Get Out, The Stepford Wives, Glass Onion, and The White Lotus, Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, thrown together in the hopes of stirring up so many plots in a pot thatht something fresh comes out. Instead, what we’re served is a bland, flavorless three day old stew. #MeToo-flavored social commentary that’s woefully undercooked. I would rather eat raw chicken than watch this film again. It’s so much less than the sum of its influences. Unintelligent, generic, contrived, recycled… SO boring.
Was there even a script? The actors, except Channing Tatum, all deserve a pass considering how shallow the material is. The film is never funny, never insightful—it’s just basic as fuck. Blah. We get yet another story about a rich white guy weaponizing his power, served up as satire. The #MeToo satires, the rich-people satires—it’s all been done to death in recent years. From Succession to Triangle of Sadness, these themes have been explored so well in recent TV and film that there’s simply no need for this.
One star
Good One
Directed by India Donaldson
Could’ve been great. The movie had a solid command of atmosphere, timing, and sound design. I think Wendy Lee could’ve added a little heft to the characters. Otherwise, it was a quaint, ambient slice of indie cinema. It went down easy, came out forgettable. But I loved the female lead. Lily Collias is someone to watch out for.
Three Stars
