Strange Darling (2023)

October 8, 2024 8:12 AM

A twisted one-night stand spirals into a serial killer's vicious murder spree.

Starring Willa Fitzgerald, Kyle Gallner, Barbara Hershey, Ed Begley Jr., Jason Patric.

Written and directed by JT Mollner. Written by JT Mollner. Produced by Bill Block, Steve Schneider, Roy Lee, Giovanni Ribisi for Miramax/Spooky Pictures.
Cinematography by Giovanni Ribisi (really). Edited by Christopher Robin Bell. Music by Craig DeLeon.

95% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

Now available for digital rental in the US. JustWatch listing.

posted by DirtyOldTown (4 comments total)

Although, once again there is no rule about spoilers against comments in FanFare, this one is complicated. I'm going to go in layers, and the more you read, the more you will know. Every time you see a bolded phrase, that will indicate another layer of information is inbound that you can opt of seeing by closing the tab.

First thing to know: the less you know going in, the better this works. I didn't even link a trailer for this reason. People say this about a lot of movies, but this is at the very high end of how true that can really be. Better to go in blind. Completely blind.

However, that said if you are a person who appreciates trigger warnings read to the next section.

Still here? Okay. There is not just violence here, but sexual violence, even in the form of scary, nonconsensual brutality against a woman that is hard to take. This said, if you know me from MeFi, I hope you know I am not a creep. Even if you don't, consider that MeFi is about as low-creep a zone as generally exists online. I wouldn't recommend this if it were gross violation of women.

So... if the above stuff seems super fucked-up and you really need to know specifically why anyone would recommend this, given that kind of content... at just about the moment that a normal person would be thinking about turning this off for good, it is then revealed that the "nonconsensual" part is role play. And not only is this troubling stuff a game, it's a game the woman insisted upon and charted out herself.

And why does this make sense in the context of the movie? Super duper spoiler inbound, to the extent that I will even use the stupid tag:

Spoiler

The lady is the serial killer, not the guy.

posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:24 AM on October 8 [2 favorites]

Okay, now to discussing the actual movie.

The "Shot entirely on 35mm film" title before the movie, the nonlinear setup, the titled chapters, the TCM-inspired "This is a true story" narration at the open, and the huge twists... these are all very "Look at me! I am a clever and exciting filmmaker!" shit.

The thing is... Mollner kind of is, so he gets away with that.

While the movie definitely raises some real issues toys around provocatively with some real issues, I am not convinced it necessarily has anything specific to actually say about those issues. This is a talented filmmaker fucking with you just for the game of it. Given how upsetting some of the violence in the sex scene plays out as (until context is added anyway), it's entirely fair if you hate this kind of fucking around. I thought it was kind of a ride.

One of the rarest things in horror is when a movie actually feels unsafe. This has that.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:30 AM on October 8

Yeah, this was surprisingly engaging. I called the "what" of the spoiler/twist fairly early on but not the "how/why" (my first guess was some kind of demon possession, ha.) Watching it unfold to see how right/wrong my guesses were was a lot of fun. It took a good, long time to resolve clearly and was often awfully weird getting there.

Definitely a movie that plays with its audience, mostly in good ways, though I agree, I almost noped out during the seemingly nonconsensual bondage scene and almost again when the tables were turned. It was A Lot sometimes, yet I was left feeling pleasantly...I can't quite say "entertained", so I'll go back to "engaged."
posted by kittensyay at 6:09 PM on October 8 [2 favorites]

I also got the main twist pretty early and also found that one scene pretty hard to watch. Overall I thought this was good but I'm also not sure I thought it had much to say. The protagonist was magnetic and the acting was good, the temporal structure was a little show-offy but it worked well, and even the ending worked. I feel like I should have liked this more than I did.
posted by whir at 9:40 PM on October 8