Film review: Strange Darling (2024)

 There was a bewildering array of crap movies (plus some good movies that I'd already seen) on offer on my Heathrow-to-Chicago flight and after scrolling around for about half an hour I settled on this one, because I remembered it having good reviews a few months back.  Verdict? Disappointing, although not boring, and with a handful of good moments.  It's based on a gimmick (so you know there's a twist coming), specifically a re-working of what Pulp Fiction was famous for - chopping up the story and putting the pieces in non-sequential order.  In this case there are 6 "chapters" (plus an Epilogue that dragged on a bit), each with names, and you are informed what number chapter you're watching.  We start with chapter 3 (it turns out the important chapters twist-wise are 2 and 4), which, until the very end, just features the two main characters of the film who are called respectively, "The Lady" (a young, small blonde women, who when we meet her is wearing bright red (a color that is a motif of the film) scrubs and has crusted blood all down the right side of her head) 

and "The Demon" (a good-looking dark-haired, mustachioed young man).  

The Lady is driving a vintage Pinto desperately along a country road repeatedly looking behind her at a large black pickup truck, driven by the crazed-looking Demon, who snorts repeatedly from a bag of what looks like (and, we later discover, is) cocaine.  He gets close enough so that he can stop, leap onto the bed of the truck, aim his shotgun on the top of the cab and shoot out her rear window.  This causes her to crash and she runs into the nearby woods.  He stalks her, but she finds where it looks like some kids have been hanging out and (implausibly) left most of a bottle of vodka and some cigarettes.  She bites on something for the pain then alternates swigging the vodka and pouring it onto her head wound.  Then she lights a cigarette, which honestly seems inadvisable with a crazy person stalking you with a shotgun.  The chapter ends with her rushing up to the door of a farmhouse in a clearing deep in the woods and the door being answered by a middle-aged couple (one of whom is Ed Begley Jr.) and she says the title of the chapter, which is something like "Please help me!"  Anyway, we're off and running.  The film features several deaths (one by biting), drugging and mutilation with a very sharp knife, use of bear spray, use of a taser, S&M (which starts a chapter, so you are initially led to think that the choking being done is non-consensual - one of the many twists-within-twists that the chapter format allows)... you name it.  As I said, it's never boring, but you might see the twist coming, and I think the film teeters on the brink of misogyny, although I'm quite sure the filmmaker would have an argument why it doesn't fall in.  Both main actors are unknowns (to me) and acquit themselves admirably (and The Lady in particular commits 100%).  The dialogue is not great, so it's all about style over substance really.  If this film had been made in the 50s or 60s (minus some of the gore, obviously, although there's no nudity to remove) it would be something of a gonzo classic (actually the amount of smoking in the film is much more consistent with a film of that era than now), 

but it's hard to be original in the 2020s.  Still, as a first effort (as I believe it is) it's very promising, although, short as it is, it does rather outstay its welcome in the closing stages.  I would say more, but I can't really without giving anything away.  So watch it if you're bored on a flight.

Oh yeah, I've just remembered who the director is.  Fairly well-known actor Giovanni Ribisi.  Everybody's trying directing these days.