Strange Darling

Another without a lot of compare-and-contrast, this was an odd day at the movies storytelling; I got out of the comic shop a bit late and this was what made the most sense and, fine, I was looking to see this before it left theaters anyway. It did get brushed aside fairly quickly in its second week, because while there probably wasn't a lot noticeably better than it coming out, the crap came out in volume for Labor Day Weekend.

Speaking of this film's release, I feel like I saw a preview for it every time I was at the Seaport Alamo over the past few months, often after a little "Fantastic Fest Presents" snip that said this horror movie is cool and special and really part of what makes Alamo/FF special… and then it didn't open there. It happens all the time at most every multiplex that doesn't have their lineup for a couple of months at a time set, but you've got to admit, it's a lot funnier when it happens at the Alamo than anywhere else.

(Also, there was a trailer for The Monkey pushing it as "from the director of Longlegs" with Longlegs just having left that same first-run multiplex, which just doesn't happen much nowadays!)


Strange Darling

* * ½ (out of four)
Seen 31 August 2024 in AMC Causeway Street #8 (first-run, laser DCP)

The open acknowledgment that horror can be art, and actually good, to the extent that there are multiple distributors who make "horror movies that critics like" the cornerstone of their brand, has distorted the genre in some ways that are maybe less universally good or bad than peculiar: The word is out that horror is a place where filmmakers can experiment and push narrative envelopes as well as those of good taste, and and while that's fine overall, it seems to be leading to more movies where eagerness to show off unconventional filmmaking overwhelms the ability to simply tell an exciting story.

In Strange Darling, for instance, before the film has actually begun in earnest, the audience has been given (1) a black-and-white teaser of later events, (2) a narrator addressing the audience directly about what they are about to see, (3) an entry in the opening titles about how the movie is proudly shot on 35mm film, (4) Willa Fitzgerald credited as "The Lady" and Kyle Gallner as "The Demon", (5) a title card that describes it as "a thriller in six chapters", and then (6) opted to start with Chapter Three. There is, of course, an ironic musical choice playing during all of this. It is, perhaps, filmmaker JT Mollner setting himself and the audience a challenge - having called such attention to this artifice, will he be able to pull the audience in in such a way that they get caught up in the film in a visceral way?

And Chapter Three makes a good argument that he can, starting with an impressively-shot but minimalist car chase before The Lady flees into the woods, her red Pinto wrecked, eventually making her way to an isolated homestead where an older couple (Ed Begley Jr. & Barbara Hershey) greet her warily, The Demon seemingly never far behind with his own car and his high-powered rifle. It's carefully staged and seemingly dedicated to telling the story through what the characters do, and it looks pretty terrific, the reds of the characters' clothing and the sporty little car popping against the green background in a way that happily defied my slight color-blindness. She runs frantically, often changing directions, while he moves methodically forward. Mollner sets a very specific mood by starting here and executing this well.

Of course, you don't start at Chapter Three and then jump forward to Chapter Five before returning to Chapter One unless you're planning to show that all is not as it appears, but the calling attention to the plan doesn't do Mollner a lot of favors; when one telegraphs an eventual twist so clearly, then it would seemingly make sense to have that twist be unusually good or clever, but it's never more than one might expect. Indeed, one might argue that the way he cuts this film up into six or seven pieces and then reorders them feels like an attempt to camouflage just how empty a stylistic exercise the rest of the movie is: Thrillers often connect to viewers with specific details, or stun with the realization that something the audience had paid no mind was actually crucial foreshadowing; this never offers up anything of particular interest about its characters and reversing the order of events leads to snickers at how obvious the attempt at manipulation The Lady wearing a red wig instead of having loose blonde hair was. The bits we see of the characters' different facets wind up so removed from context that they can't form a whole; they just feel random.

And maybe that's the idea, to point out that all the tropes and techniques of a thriller are just little tricks that filmmakers have learned but are still often effective even when you know that, if everybody commits to their jobs. For the most part, they do: Fitzgerald and Gallner deliver exactly what Mollner wants and the film needs in every scene, the latter feeling like he's spent his entire career growing into this sort of scuzzy antagonist. Actor-turned-cinematographer Giovanni Ribisi shows real chops at his new job. The mechanics are often very strong indeed; I suspect Mollner and editor Christopher Robin Bell could make a conventional thriller move were they to play it straight. After all, this one often works pretty well it's in the moment and the characters have to solve a clearly-presented problem rather than worry about a bigger picture.

Unfortunately, this movie is so often about calling attention to the bigger picture despite there being nothing there. Mollner spends every moment when someone is not actively running for their life winking or yelling "gotcha!", but he's spent so much time saying "look what I'm going to do here" as to sap the thrill out of any moment where he does something unconventional.