'Strange Darling' review: A thriller on shuffle
A game of cat and mouse gets shaken up in JT Mollner's pleasingly nasty film
JT Mollner, the writer and director of the new thriller Strange Darling, displays his cinematic chutzpah from the get-go.
Before the movie begins, text pops up announcing that his movie was shot on 35mm. Then, a blood-red opening screen tells us it is told in 6 chapters. After a brief, violent black-and-white sequence and scrolling text that sets up a story about a serial killer on the loose, the screen turns crimson again. This time, it reads “Chapter 3.”
“Oh brother,” I thought to myself.
With a surplus of confidence bordering on unearned swagger, Strange Darling begins at the halfway point of the story Mollner is trying to tell. We’re dropped in the middle of a life-or-death pursuit: A young woman (Willa Fitzgerald) is fleeing from an older man (Kyle Gallner). The opening credits refer to her only as The Lady, and to him as The Demon.
It’s not long before The Demon, perched from the bed of his stopped pickup truck, shoots out the back window of The Lady’s car, causing her to swerve and flip. She flees on foot through the woods, her face framed so that every determined contortion is visible.
She comes across a secluded home. It’s occupied by an elderly couple who take her in. They’re played by Ed Begly Jr. and Barbara Hershey, who give the movie a welcome dose of character actor street cred. We’ll get to know them later, in a different chapter that shows their morning routine (including a disgusting breakfast concoction) leading up to her arrival.
Strange Darling hops around like this for the duration, saving its biggest narrative turns for Chapter 1, which is the third segment shown, and Chapter 2, which is the fifth.
At first, I found its structure to be a self-satisfied obstruction bordering on a gimmick. And worse, I found many of the music choices to be eye-rollingly on the nose.
But the movie still won me over at the midpoint with an extended conversation between Lady and Demon in his truck in a hotel parking lot at night. Mollner (and cinematographer Giovanni Ribisi… yes, that one) paints them neon blue as they negotiate a kinky sexual tryst they’d both like to take part in just a few feet away.
Mollner shoots and paces this sequence beautifully, letting it breathe and allowing Fitzgerald and Gallner’s crackling chemistry to fully develop. That the movie goes from this to a life-or-death chase through the nearby woods is hard to believe. But we’ve already seen it in the previous chapter.
Ultimately I think this works in the movie’s favor. The motel sequence would be the beginning of the movie if it were told chronologically, but by placing it at the midpoint Mollner gambles that we will care enough to see the rest of the details filled in.
I did, mostly because I was surprised at how playfully sadistic Strange Darling is. Outside of the obvious structural gambit, Mollner and his two leads are also adept at showcasing the violent desperation at the core of these characters.
Without giving too much away, there’s a sequence late in the film where The Lady is handcuffed to a chest freezer, straining to reach a nearby key with her leg. Mollner holds this at a wide shot, allowing Fitzgerald’s ferocious physicality to dominate the frame.
For someone like me who loves ‘80s and ‘90s erotic thrillers, I was glad to see a movie be unapologetically mean. Sometimes, I don’t want a movie to reaffirm the meaning of life and the value of kindness. (Okay, more than sometimes).
To that end, Strange Darling is a pleasingly nasty concoction whose twists, however obvious, go well beyond the bounds of good taste.
Strange Darling is now in theaters.
I think Kyle Gallner is hot