STRANGE DARLING (2023)

Studio:   Miramax
Director: JT Mollner
Writer:   JT Mollner
Producer: Bill Block, Roy Lee, Steven Schneider, Giovanni Ribisi, Chris Ivan Cevic
Stars:    Willa Fitzgerald, Kyle Gallner, Madisen Beaty, Bianca Santos, Steven Michael Quezada, Ed Begley Jr., Barbara Hershey

Review Score:

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Summary:

Tables are turned on a serial killer after a one-night stand goes in an unexpected direction.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

CHAPTER 3 - "CAN YOU HELP ME? PLEASE?"

A woman identified as The Lady flees from a man identified as The Demon, whose name is later revealed to be RC. Pursuing her in a speeding truck, RC fires a shotgun to disable The Lady's car. The Lady continues fleeing on foot through a forest until she seeks help at a remote woodland home belonging to aging hippies Frederick and Genevieve.

CHAPTER 5 - "HERE, KITTY, KITTY..."

RC searches the house for The Lady while Frederick lies dead on the kitchen floor. RC finally finds The Lady hiding in a chest freezer and fires at her through the paneling before punching her unconscious with his fist.

CHAPTER 1 - "MISTER SNUFFLE"

After hooking up in a bar, RC takes The Lady to the Blue Angel Hotel for a one-night stand. The couple mutually consents to rough sex with rape roleplay where "Mister Snuffleupagus" is the safe word.

CHAPTER 4 - "THE MOUNTAIN PEOPLE"

The Lady tells Frederick and Genevieve about the man chasing her, but she insists they cannot call the cops. When Frederick moves to call the police anyway, The Lady stabs him to death with a knife. The Lady tries to take Genevieve captive, but Genevieve runs into the forest. When she sees RC approaching, The Lady returns to the house and hides in the freezer.

CHAPTER 2 - "DO YOU LIKE TO PARTY?"

In the hotel, The Lady convinces RC to snort cocaine she secretly laces with ketamine. Once RC begins suffering adverse effects, The Lady restrains him to a bed, tortures him for ten minutes, and carves the initials EL into his chest. She also finds a badge among his belongings that reveals he works for law enforcement. Before she can fatally stab him, however, RC pulls a gun hidden in an ankle holster and shoots The Lady's ear. The Lady escapes the room as RC continues firing.

Seeking safety in the hotel lobby, The Lady ends up killing the desk clerk and threatening housekeeper Tanya into turning over her scrubs and car keys. Meanwhile, RC counteracts the ketamine by snorting cocaine to regain his faculties. The Lady hits the road in Tanya's Pinto with RC in pursuit.

CHAPTER 6 - "WHO'S GARY GILMORE?"

With The Lady still unconscious, RC handcuffs her to the freezer in Frederick and Genevieve's house. He then phones his friend Pete, a sheriff's deputy, for help.

After she recovers, The Lady and RC engage in a confrontation that includes her mentioning serial killer Gary Gilmore. The Lady surprises RC by spraying him with bear repellent she took from Genevieve. The Lady then bites a chunk of flesh from RC's neck, causing him to bleed out and fall over dead.

The Lady collects RC's handgun just as Pete arrives with his partner Gayle. The Lady pulls down her pants and feigns hysteria to look like RC's assault victim. Pete and Gayle argue because Gayle insists on immediately freeing The Lady while Pete wants to determine what happened before making assumptions. Gayle ultimately compels Pete to help The Lady.

Pete and Gayle drive away from the crime scene with The Lady in the backseat of their patrol car. When they come across Genevieve in the road pleading for help, The Lady suddenly shoots Genevieve in her head. The Lady reveals she is the serial killer known as "The Electric Lady." The Lady then has Gayle flee into the forest as thanks for freeing her while Pete is forced at gunpoint to continue driving.

EPILOGUE - "THE ELECTRIC LADY"

The Lady eventually executes Pete and exits the vehicle. After flagging down a sympathetic truck driver passing by, The Lady prepares to shoot the driver from the passenger seat, but the driver pulls a gun and shoots The Lady in self-defense. The driver calls in the shooting and starts driving away to turn in The Lady. During the drive, The Lady gradually bleeds out.

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Review:

The hype surrounding "Strange Darling" was inescapable. During its limited theatrical run, it seemed like the only genre movie anyone was talking about. Ed Begley Jr., who plays a small supporting role in the film, posted on X, "I am so lucky to be in this wonderful movie ... You will not be disappointed." Kid Cudi was so impressed, he hosted a free screening in Los Angeles where he personally provided popcorn to guests. Stephen King put the most complimentary cherry on top by calling the film "a clever masterpiece" while countless others couldn't stop crowing about the movie's surprises, style, and creativity.

Although acclaim was plentiful, concrete information about the plot was harder to come by. That only heightened the movie's mystique. Those fortunate enough to see the film became part of an exclusive "in the know" club where everyone else was left enviously pounding on the door until their time came to finally be let inside. What was "Strange Darling?" What was its secret hook no one would reveal? What in the hell was everyone so damn excited about?

Like a Shyamalan thriller, the adverse effect of all that cryptic hullaballoo is you end up going in expecting a shocking twist. Even if you don't know what it is, you still know it's coming, which conditions your mind to be on guard for an unexpected turn of events. That's unfortunate, because "Strange Darling's" success as a story ties to its ability to maintain the mystery, which is difficult to do when a viewer prepares for assumptions to be upended, and predicts what the revelation will be since the movie's deliberately narrowed material only allows for one possibility.

With its title card, "Strange Darling" announces itself as "a thriller in 6 chapters." Those chapters are not presented in chronological order. Beginning with Chapter 3, "Strange Darling" opens on a chase between a woman, identified by opening credits as The Lady (Willa Fitzgerald), and a man, identified as The Demon (Kyle Gallner). After The Demon disables her car with a shotgun blast, The Lady flees on foot through a forest and seeks safety in a remote home owned by aging hippies Frederick (Ed Begley, Jr.) and Genevieve (Barbara Hershey). So far, there's nothing particularly enthralling about these events, just the ordinary slasher fare of a woman running and panting.

"Strange Darling" doesn't get any more original when it jumps from the end of Chapter 3 to the start of Chapter 5. Here, The Demon resumes his pursuit of The Lady inside the woodland house, methodically moving from room to room waving his shotgun while The Lady hides in a freezer on the kitchen floor. Nearly 20 minutes in and we're no closer to discovering what separates "Strange Darling" from so many similar setups.

At almost exactly the halfway mark, the turning point finally arrives, and "Strange Darling" undergoes a transformation. Inevitably, viewers who see the switch taking shape may be miffed that they "outsmarted" the script's unconventional structure, except it's not the twist that makes the movie. What makes "Strange Darling" clever is how the twist retroactively recontextualizes everything you've already witnessed while concurrently going up on two wheels for a second half that continues keeping audiences off balance.

Favoring drama development over delivering successive thrills, "Strange Darling's" cat-and-mouse confrontation becomes more of a cat-and-mouse conversation. Suspense comes from intense pushing and pulling between The Lady and The Demon throughout the arc of their time together. Having started as a one-night stand, their dynamic eventually, and suddenly, jumps tracks into serial murder mayhem. Long before end credits roll, it's apparent that the movie draws its atmosphere from the characters' reactions and personalities rather than just their actions. As such, "Strange Darling" stands out as a macabre chamber play anchored by two equally compelling, evenly matched performances from actors who have the range to emit evil, affability, and heroism as required by their roles at any given moment in a scene.

"Strange Darling" has a hard time holding its big secret up its sleeve, which is the sore thumb on a hand that isn't consistently slick at various sleights of hand. Yet when I think of how many throwaway thrillers go in one ear and immediately out the other, I can't argue against "Strange Darling's" ability to linger in one's mind. You may not be surprised. Maybe you won't be awed either, at least not to the extent of so many early adopters. But you will remember the actors. You will remember what happened. You will remember how the story was chopped up and rearranged. It will be hard to forget "Strange Darling."

Review Score: 75

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