Before throwing us into the story proper, JT Mollner’s Strange Darling informs us that it was “shot entirely on 35mm film.” It’s a strange inclusion, especially preceding a film that already has so much going on at a narrative and visual level, that doesn’t really click until you find out that actor Giovanni Ribisi acted not only as the film’s cinematographer, but also its producer. Vanity is quickly forgiven, however, when actually witnessing the results. Strange Darling looks legitimately incredible, and the use of 35mm feels far less like a gimmick designed to pander to purists than a conscious invocation of the film’s aesthetic forebears.
A text crawl provides a rudimentary bit of context, informing the audience that the film is set at the tail end of “the most prolific and unique” serial killer’s murder spree, the exact identity left deliberately vague. The overture is the stuff of ’70s grindhouse fare: a man (Kyle Gallner), driving a pickup truck while seemingly drugged out of his mind, chases a bloodied and bruised woman (Willa Fitzgerald) who is trying to make her escape in a ’78 Pinto. Knowing that this is a film that supposedly works best when going in completely blind as so many reviews have noted, it’s obvious that there’s more to this than meets the eye.
If the reviews didn’t tip the audience off already, then the reveal of a fragmented chapter structure surely will. The chase is quickly interrupted by a chapter card, and Mollner underscores the nature of the in media res opening by starting things off with the third one. This obviously harkens back to post-Pulp Fiction indies, but how much does it really do for the film? On the whole, perhaps not all that much, but it does add a welcome tension to the earlier chapters that consist of Gallner and Fitzgerald’s characters sitting in a car, talking through a planned night of sexual roleplaying that they subsequently go about realizing, both not realizing the horrors this meeting will kick off.
Before the full truth about the central duo is revealed, Mollner throws us some curveballs by teasing several different dynamics and situations that are quickly shown to not reflect the truth in any meaningful way. One moment in particular is reminiscent of Patricia Mazuy’s 2022 thriller Saturn Bowling in the misogynistic violence it depicts (or at least appears to). The filmmaker is smart enough to not overplay his hand with what could very easily feel like the filmic equivalent of a party trick, though, keeping things moving after sufficiently establishing the time-jump setup.
This bait-and-switch construction is also spared a worse, more obnoxious fate by virtue of its two leads. Gallner, not a particularly compelling presence by most metrics, uses his television-actor features to capture something meek and mildly pathetic about his character, even before his eventual descent into coked-out desperation. This plays well against Willa Fitzgerald, whose chill-girl demeanor demonstrates a clearly darker edge bubbling underneath. Both performances would’ve profited from a stronger directorial hand to make some of the actors’ back-and-forth dynamic a little more controlled (or at least more coherent), but both seem dialed into the material to a degree where their more actorly instincts don’t clash with any given scene.
As for the meat of the film — it’s all a lot less subversive than the marketing and reviews would have you believe. Genre tropes have been flipped on their heads for decades now and male–female relations have similarly been mined for as long as the medium has existed. As far as its gender politics are concerned, it certainly acquits itself better than 2022’s Sanctuary, a black comedy that was all bark, no bite, though Mollner’s film, somewhat predictably, can’t measure up to the genre-infused considerations of a Claire Denis. But its failure to rise to masterpiece status aside, Strange Darling is plenty good for some twisty, nasty horror fun, and the fact that it takes care to give viewers something visually impressive to look at throughout goes a long, long way in a genre that too often fails to prioritize such artistry.
DIRECTOR: JT Mollner; CAST: Willa Fitzgerald, Kyle Gallner, Ed Begley Jr., Barbara Hershey; DISTRIBUTOR: Magenta Light Studios; IN THEATERS: August 23; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 36 min.
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