Strange Darling (2024)
Directed by: JT Mollner
Premise: A man with a rifle (Kyle Gallner) pursues a woman (Willa Fitzgerald) through rural Oregon.
What Works: Strange Darling impresses in every aspect of its filmmaking. The movie is rooted in exploitation cinema such Gator Bait and Thriller: A Cruel Picture and well-viewed audiences will spot the influence of Reservoir Dogs and the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. However, the influences are just that. This picture isn’t a collage of film school Easter eggs. The filmmakers lean on elements of earlier movies to make something bold and contemporary. Strange Darling taps into the history of women in peril movies and it subverts audience expectations in a way that is clever and interesting; the filmmakers play provocatively with gender and its historical representation in genre films and Strange Darling offers a lot to unpack. The film works so well in part because of its story construction. The narrative is told out of order with the filmmakers leaping all over the timeline in Tarantinoeque fashion. However, this is a prime example of that kind of nonlinear storytelling; the narrative pieces are organized in a way that sets up expectations and then turns them upside down, generally maximizing our surprise but also making the audience aware of their own expectations and the way they are tied to storytelling conventions and cultural beliefs. The performances of Strange Darling are terrific, especially Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner in the lead roles. The filmmakers also manage to insert subtle details with some of the supporting characters, especially an elderly couple played by Barbara Hershey and Ed Begley Jr., who are effectively characterized within just a few scenes. The cinematography and sound of Strange Darling are terrific. The colors of Giovanni Ribisi’s photography are vivid and the music by Z Berg is haunting.
What Doesn’t: Strange Darling is a difficult film to discuss without getting into spoilers and it is important that viewers to go into this film as cold as possible because the surprise of the various twists and turns is important to the viewing experience. As such, it’s unclear how Strange Darling might play on repeat viewings. It will probably continue to entertain and enlighten because the filmmaking and performances are so impressive and audiences will probably want to study how well everything fits together. But like Psycho and The Sixth Sense, Strange Darling is a film in which the initial viewing will be critical to appreciating it. The story’s central reveal comes fairly early and the filmmakers miss an opportunity to draw out some of the ambiguity.
Bottom Line: Strange Darling is an extraordinary film. It’s extremely well made and provocatively riffs on some of our most central storytelling themes. Viewers should approach Strange Darling with as little foreknowledge as possible.
Episode: #1011 (September 1, 2024)