Strange Darling Review
This past weekend a new small budget indie thriller, Strange Darling came out. This is one that wasn’t on my radar, but I heard some very positive early buzz about it; it premiered at Fantastic Fest last year, got great reviews. I went into this movie without having seen a trailer, synopsis, or seen a review of the movie. I didn’t know what to expect. Did I enjoy the movie? Was it any good? Let’s get started!
The Good
The first thing I want to say about this movie is “wow”, going into this movie knowing nothing about it was a great way to experience this movie. If you’re at all interested in checking this movie out, I would go in as blind as possible. This movie is weird and strange when you watch the movie. It’s the type of movie that no matter what is happening on screen, whether it’s thrilling or a quieter scene you’re engaged with what’s happening and you want to see what’s going to happen next. So many pieces about this movie that make it interesting, the big one to talk about is how it’s told out of order. The movie is told in chapter form, there’s six chapters in this movie and it shows you the chapters out of order. This movie drops you into chapter three, then to chapter five without understanding what’s going on. The first 15-20 minutes is basically this girl on the run from this guy. But as the movie reveals more information about what’s going on, you start to reshape things that came before and you understand better what’s going at the beginning of the movie when you get to the middle of the movie. I thought that was a very clever way to tell the film’s story, where if they told it in order it’ll be a pretty slow build. Probably would be 30 minutes before things really get going. I think it was a smart move by the director to tell the middle of the story at the beginning of the movie.
Because the information is told out of order, it very much plays against your expectations. When the movie starts and we get this man chasing this girl, your mind automatically sets certain expectations for what’s going on. There’s sequences as you go throughout the movie that seem to be evidence of what you saw at the beginning of the movie. Then as the movie goes along, you get a series of twists, turns, and reveals to what is actually happening. It starts off as a cat and mouse thriller, but by the end of the movie you wouldn’t describe this movie as a cat and mouse thriller. Once again, I think if this movie was told straight forward in a linear fashion, the mystery of what’s going on would be lost and would feel like just another cat and mouse thriller. But with it being told out of order, it’s able to surprise the audience and stand out a little bit more in the genre.
With this type of movie it relies on you to buy into the lead performances. Both of our leads in this movie did a great job. The leads are Willia Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner, I’m not super familiar with either one of their other roles. But I really liked what both of them brought to the table, both of them have to bring a lot of layers and complexity to their characters. It’s hard to talk about what makes them great without giving anything away, but they do a fantastic job here. I don’t think the movie would work as well as it does if they weren’t great. They’re really the two leads of the movie, I believe either one of them is in every scene of the movie. But there are a lot of supporting characters, they aren’t characters that are given arcs or have a time to shine. But they all have something about them that’s interesting, they all have one moment that pops. Once again, the side characters aren’t super layered, but they fit the movie they’re in.
Also, this movie is very beautifully shot. It’s a very simple movie, it’s very small budget and because it is so small, it’s very easy for this movie to not be super flashy and very generic. But that’s not the case with this movie, they do do a great job of staging the sequences. Putting the camera in a certain position to make you understand what the characters are feeling in certain scenes. Even their use of color, mainly red as a way to visualize the emotions of the characters added some nice layers to the movie. As I watched it, I thought to myself “whoever this cinematographer does a great job”, the credits roll and the cinematographer is Giovanni Ribisi, yes the actor from Friends, Avatar, Ted, and many more movies, did the cinematography. I didn’t even know he did behind the scenes work on movies, he did a great job. I hope he does more jobs as a cinematographer, I think he was able to add some nice to the movie.
Finally, this is a great version of what I wish we got more of in Hollywood. Where there’s so many big studio blockbuster films that feel more like corporate products rather than a distinct vision. This is the type of movie where it's a small budget movie, the budget for this movie is only $4 million. It doesn’t feel like a studio giving notes to fix certain things about the movie. This feels like a director’s passion, it feels like the type of movie that a director wanted to make and he did it. When there are these smaller budgeted films, it’s easy for them to float under the radar but sometimes those are the best movies to watch, because they feel so different from the big mainstream stuff that everybody goes and sees.
NOTE: This isn’t a good or a bad thing, but it is something that I think is worth talking about that could turn people away from this project. Around 30-40 minutes there’s a scene that starts in a hotel room that looks like a set up for a rape scene. It’s not actually a rape scene, as the scene goes along you understand what’s really going on. When I went to go see the movie, two people did get up and leave when the scene started. I’ve heard that happen with other people. If you’re sensitive to that sort of content, there is that in here. But if you stick around to the end of the scene, it’ll make more sense as to what’s really going on.
The Bad
The first thing that comes to that mind is the film can feel a bit clunky in the last five minutes of the movie. There’s multiple times where you think the movie is going to end, but it keeps on going. It’s not that any of the scenes are bad, I like the note that the final scene leaves on. But I think there was a way to make the scenes flow, change some of the scenes to not make the movie feel like ok “we’re ending, nope just kidding”. Once again, none of the scenes are bad and they play a part in the story but the clunkiness could have been changed.
Also, with the inherent nature of the storytelling with telling it out of order, the middle act can have some weird pacing to it. The movie starts off very tense, you’re on the edge of your seat from the opening seconds of the movie. Then when it slows down to go back to the beginning to explore the setup, it can slow down…then build back up. I think the middle act is definitely the big example of this. But the last third of the movie doesn’t let up its pace, it keeps going for the last 30 minutes of the movie. I know earlier I praised the non-linear storytelling of the movie, I stand by that but there are some inherent flaws that come with that.
Final Thoughts: I loved that I went into this movie knowing absolutely nothing about it. There’s certain movies that play great when you know that, Strange Darling absolutely fits into that category. If you’re interested in this movie, if you love small budget indie horror thrillers this is one that is worth checking out. I hope this movie does well at the box office because it teaches Hollywood and filmmakers that we want more movies like this. Once again, if you can go into this movie as blind as possible it’ll provide the best viewing experience.
The Score: 8.7/10 (B+)
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