FRESH (2022)

Studio:     Hulu/Searchlight Pictures
Director:    Mimi Cave
Writer:     Lauryn Kahn
Producer:  Adam McKay, Kevin Messick
Stars:     Daisy Edgar-Jones, Sebastian Stan, Jojo T. Gibbs, Charlotte Le Bon, Andrea Bang, Dayo Okeniyi

Review Score:

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Summary:

Desperate to find love on the dating scene, a young woman meets a charming man whose surprising secret puts her in danger.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Noa meets Steve, a doctor, while grocery shopping. Following a meet-cute moment of mutual attraction, Noa agrees to give Steve her phone number. Noa and Steve continue hitting it off over drinks on their first date, and Noa brings Steve back to her apartment where they have sex.

Noa tells her best friend Mollie about Steve. Noa mentions that one of Mollie’s exes, Paul, was their bartender. Mollie finds it unusual that Steve doesn’t have any social media accounts she can snoop.

After a dinner date at home, Noa accepts Steve’s proposal to go away for the weekend to a mystery destination. Despite Noa’s enthusiasm, Mollie expresses wariness over the getaway since it’s happening so soon and she hasn’t even met Steve. Noa sends Mollie a photo of Steve sleeping in her bed.

Steve picks up Noa for their trip. Claiming traffic is too busy to go to Cottage Grove right away, Steve drives Noa to his remote home instead. Noa notices there is no cellphone reception or Wifi. Steve prepares a drugged cocktail for Noa that renders her unconscious.

Noa wakes up to find herself chained to the floor in a basement room. Steve reveals he is a cannibal who sells human meat to wealthy clients, and Noa is another victim. Noa learns that two other women, Penny and Melissa, are also being held captive in adjacent rooms and having their limbs gradually removed.

Steve uses Noa’s phone to respond to concerned texts from Mollie. Mollie doubts if the texts are actually coming from Noa, especially after Steve fails to reply with Noa’s telltale endearment. Mollie also discovers that a picture Noa supposedly sent of her destination is a stock photo.

Steve uses his surgical skills to cut up Melissa’s leg. Steve vacuum seals the pieces, packs them with personal effects, and prepares shipping boxes that are picked up by a deliveryman.

As punishment for a failed escape attempt, Steve carves off Noa’s ass. Through their shared wall, Noa commiserates with Penny, who is surprised to find out Steve had sex with Noa since that is atypical behavior with his victims.

Noa asks Steve why he slept with her. Steve says he liked Noa, although he adds that having sex was a mistake. In a magazine Steve allowed her to read, Noa finds a message from a previous victim who advises Noa to take advantage of Steve’s affection for her.

Concerned because she hasn’t seen Noa in a week, Mollie convinces Paul to help identify Noa’s suitor by checking his bar’s credit card receipts. Mollie finds out Steve is actually Brendan Steve Kemp, and he has a wife, Ann, and two children.

Mollie confronts Ann at her suburban home. Ann, who is later revealed to be missing a leg, claims to know nothing about her husband having a secret life. Steve comes home. Mollie asks about Noa, but Steve claims he doesn’t know her. Still suspicious, Mollie calls Noa’s phone and hears it ringing in Steve’s pocket. Ann knocks out Mollie from behind. Noa and Penny later learn Steve took another prisoner.

Noa endears herself to Steve by pretending to be interested in cannibalism. Steve brings Noa upstairs for a dinner where she partakes in human meat. Noa uses the opportunity to seemingly connect romantically with Steve.

Steve gifts Noa with a pink dress she wears for a second dinner they both treat like a real date. Steve shows Noa his collection of mementos from previous victims. Noa notices her personal items are not among them, although she does spot Mollie’s cellphone.

Noa eventually seduces Steve into having sex. With his guard down, Noa bites Steve’s penis, blinds him with toothpaste, and locks him in a bedroom while she frees Mollie and Penny.

Steve breaks out of the bedroom. The three women slash at Steve in a savage knife fight that injures everyone. Noa, Mollie, and Penny make it outside as Steve goes after them with a gun.

Trying to track Mollie after she went missing, Paul arrives outside the house. Paul hears Steve firing his gun in the distance and decides to turn around and leave.

Ann comes to the house with the deliveryman to pick up new shipments. Ann finds Steve’s blood on the floor, and also finds a separate memento box indicating Steve has feelings for Noa.

Noa, Mollie, and Penny beat Steve to the ground outside. Noa recovers the gun and shoots Steve. Ann later finds her husband’s dead body.

Noa goes back toward the house to retrieve her phone. Ann attacks and strangles Noa. Noa stabs Ann. Having heard the commotion, Mollie joins the struggle by beating Ann to death with a shovel.

Noa asks who the attacking woman was. Mollie explains she was Steve’s wife. Noa and Mollie laugh when Noa expresses disappointed surprise upon discovering Steve was married.

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Review:

It’s been many years since my last experience with online dating. Being male, I’m also on the opposite side of the POV most often depicted in rom-coms as well as cautionary thrillers about the digital dangers that come with looking for love.

But you don’t have to be a single woman who’s active on currently trendy apps to commiserate with the frustration felt by Noa, an everyday young bohemian stuck on a never-ending carousel of disappointing duds and unsolicited dick pics. Our first few minutes with “Fresh” are spent sharing Noa’s silently stunned expression as her latest wannabe suitor drones on and on. All Noa hears is the trumpet plunger warble of Charlie Brown’s teacher overpowering a fight-or-flight instinct to look at her watch. Of course he’s named Chad, too. Entirely oblivious to Noa’s clear signals of disinterest, Chad confirms his plain vanilla flavor by talking about acid reflux, spitting out a passive-aggressive insult to feminine fashion, and itemizing the check down to every last dime so he doesn’t overpay for insisting on going Dutch. The awkwardness inspires laughing and cringing in even amounts, and you’ll undoubtedly do both as Chad cluelessly cock-blocks himself.

This ill-fated first meeting ends with a reality check Chad wasn’t ready for. To avoid feeling the embarrassment of Noa’s polite rejection, Chad overreacts by dubbing Noa “a stuck-up bitch” while slinging his pretentious dress scarf over his shoulder and clomping off in an alpha male huff. That wasn’t what Noa was expecting. “Fresh” might not be exactly what you’re expecting either, but stay with it because the story has plenty of wicked surprises in store.

A routine trip to the grocery store shines an unanticipated ray of hope on Noa’s previously pedestrian prospects. Steve manufactures a meet-cute moment out of cotton candy grapes in the fruits and vegetables aisle. His attempt at forced flirting is almost as bumbling as Chad’s, except Sebastian Stan comes with the right amount of charismatic handsomeness for Steve’s brand of cringe to be disarmingly charming. And after Chad, it’s no wonder Noa takes an immediate liking to Steve’s simultaneously shy yet confident smile.

Noa and Steve settle on a standard first date: drinks at a bar. Even though the plot’s premise gives the audience an inkling of evil yet to come, the film does a fantastic job of convincing us to let down our guard in tandem with Noa as we’re drawn into the infectious affection of their burgeoning romance. Cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski keeps appropriate space between the cast and his camera for a fly-on-the-wall feeling of eavesdropping on natural interactions from a respectful distance. Screenwriter Lauryn Kahn fills Noa and Steve with words that sound like they’re spontaneously falling out of real mouths rather than a printed page. It’s practically a privilege for viewers to vicariously enjoy their good time together. Unfortunately, good times aren’t going to last long.

Noa’s best friend Mollie thinks it’s a bad idea for Noa to go on a weekend getaway with someone she just met, especially since Steve wants to keep the destination a surprise. Noa can’t help but throw caution to the wind though. She hasn’t been excited about someone in forever, and taking a risk is a big part of that buzz. First, there’s an overnight stop at Steve’s remote home. Next comes a cocktail. And then, just over 30 minutes into the movie, come the opening credits.

It sounds strange for a movie to wait a half hour before dropping its title onscreen, right? It makes sense in this case though because, after spending a quarter of the runtime on seemingly straightforward dating fun and faux pas, things take a terrifying turn and the film finally becomes “Fresh.”

You think you’ve seen captive women, sociopathic creeps, and desperate attempts to escape imprisonment before, and you have. You’ve seen cannibalism, secret societies, and procedural investigations into missing persons before too. But “Fresh” has a consistently captivating style that makes those tropes feel, and I hate myself for saying this but, well, “fresh.” It’s dark. It’s demented. It’s smart. It’s savage. It also has a sick, slick sense of humor.

“Fresh” is not really a comedy, although it is intentionally funny as pitch-black satire of slut shaming, victim blaming, and an extreme example of how frightening modern dating can be. Following a viciously violent climax of brutal stabbings and strangulations, “Fresh” ends on a one-two punch of callback cracks that left me laughing out loud even though I’d witnessed multiple murders only two minutes earlier. Director Mimi Cave takes viewers on a riveting roller coaster ride through horror, humor, sweetness, and slashing while holding steady on a uniquely appealing tone that’s never too much of any one thing.

Cave’s creative collaborators amplify that off-kilter atmosphere through every available facet of the film. Whether it was an actual location or a set constructed on a stage, production designer Jennifer Morden builds an appealingly eerie lair for Steve that’s both luxuriously lavish and uncomfortably imposing. Exposed rock walls clash with ominous artwork and polished wood floors for a décor that definitely screams, “Only a wealthy psycho with bad but expensive taste could live here.”

Music supervisors Gabe Hilfer and Henry van Roden perfectly place needle drops that add levity to moments where there shouldn’t be any. That’s a good thing. Splashing shocks with upbeat pop tunes skews the mood in a wonderfully weird way where you can’t help but grin bemusedly even while absolutely awful things are going on.

At an hour and 54 minutes, suspense sags from being stretched out despite equally entertaining dual arcs about Noa’s situation and her friend’s frazzled search to find her. Some of the mid-movie meat montages merely press points already made, and tightening up these extraneous scenes would tighten tension.

Then again, repeatedly adjusting its speed becomes part of “Fresh’s” unusual allure. Between pacing and plotting, the movie never stays in the same gear for long. Like Noa falling for Steve, you’re helplessly hypnotized by how quickly you end up infatuated, and how eagerly you ignore flaws as a result.

Review Score: 90

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