“Strange Darling,” J.T. Mollner’s self-consciously edgy gotcha of a serial-killer thriller, is so high on its own cleverness that it never stops to think about what it’s actually saying. A pithy way to summarize this movie’s whole vibe would be “If Quentin Tarantino tried to make a ‘#MeToo movie.’” But that’s not fair to Tarantino, who, for all his flaws, is at least somewhat self-aware.
To give Mollner the benefit of the doubt, he may have been so impressed with himself when he came up with this movie’s twist that he didn’t realize that he had written a scenario that reinforces misogynist beliefs about women being untrustworthy, heartless manipulators who take pleasure in destroying decent men for the fun of it. (Apologies for the spoiler, but it’s impossible to articulate what’s wrong with this movie without at least obliquely referencing its back half.) The way that this revelation is presented suggests that its more noxious overtones are truly unwitting. But that doesn’t make their aftertaste any less gross.
The reason “Strange Darling” gets a marginal pass is that the film seems to truly believe that its subversions are empowering. Its intentions—and its disruptions—are straightforward, and it seems unaware of the implications of the specific ways in which it turns the audience’s expectations upside down. It’s not that deep, in short, and there are some shallow thrills to be had along the way. Much of that enjoyment comes from watching star Willa Fitzgerald, who commits wholeheartedly to her unnamed character’s sudden shifts in mood and affect. She gives her more range and personality than she — or, rather, the man who wrote her—really deserves. It’s a bravura performance, one that’s wasted on this stylish, but ultimately thoughtless and self-indulgent film.
Speaking of indulgence: “Strange Darling” is shot in gorgeous, vibrant 35mm. But it can’t just let its visual beauty stand on its own, instead opening with a real eye-roller of a title card that reads, “shot entirely on 35mm film.” (It should have read “shot entirely on 35mm film by Giovanni Ribisi,” given that the prolific character actor does some impressive work here as the film’s DP. Now that’s a twist.) The chase and action sequences are thrilling, the blood is convincing, and Fitzgerald isn’t the only engaging actor in the film: Ed Begley Jr. and Barbara Hershey are also endearing in minor roles as a pair of aging hippies who open their door to the wrong stranger.
Nostalgic stunt casting is a Tarantino signature. And that filmmaker’s influence on Mollner’s film, from the pithy dialogue to the non-chronological structure, is difficult to overstate. “Strange Darling” is a pastiche of a pastiche, which speaks to how a movie that has so much going for it can end up ringing so hollow. It subverts tropes because that’s a clever thing to do, not because it has anything to say about what those tropes represent or how they play out in real life. It doesn’t have any new insights about gender relations, or about gendered violence, or about sublimating violence through sexuality, although it spends long stretches rat-a-tat-tatting about those very subjects. Handed a Rorschach test, it sees nothing but a blob of ink.
