Review: Strange Darling
★★★☆☆
Strange Darling
Released: 23rd August 2024
Written by: JT Mollner
Directed by: JT Mollner
**WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD**
Strange Darling was heavily marketed on its “astonishing”, “knuckle-clenching”, and “unpredictable” turns, but for me, the biggest twist of all was how much I actually liked it by the end. That might sound like a compliment, but spending the best part of the first hour mentally oscillating between giving it a damnatory one- or generous two-star rating mid-watch wasn’t the most solid foundation of a net positive experience.
Like all great cinematic art, this one is prefaced by its creators with some general admin. First, a deftly inconspicuous, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it tech note:
There’s nothing like the comforting reassurance of knowing you’re in the hands of a Very Cool and Serious Auteur. A decidedly matter-of-fact opening crawl sets up the context for this dramatisation of “true” events we’re about to watch, except for the small detail that: they aren’t. More on that later. Sandwiched between these two bizarre creative choices is a brief exchange between the two main characters which will reappear later in the film only now it’s in black and white (*Serious Auteur vibes intensify*), cutting to a shot much more deserving of its own full-screen caveat with something to the effect of “TAKEN COMPLETELY OUT OF CONTEXT”.
There is a sustained nagging thought of knowing there’s something you don’t know that you’re supposed to know.
Told in a series of inconsecutive chapters, the film finally starts more or less in the middle of the story where our lead actors are credited with their respective character names: the Lady and the Demon, which now makes us three for three with the red herrings. The Lady, dishevelled, disoriented, and one ear down is being relentlessly hunted by the Demon, who gets his own dramatic klaxon sound effect every time he appears on screen. This decontextualized chaos sets the tone for most of what follows in that there is a sustained nagging thought of knowing there’s something you don’t know that you’re supposed to know that when you do know will make sense of what’s going on, and you’re just waiting for whatever that something is to eventually be revealed. Even for a film with a whole scene dedicated to kinky shit, I found this kind of narrative “edging” to be tedious rather than intriguing, compared to a more conventional structure that might drip-feed you pieces of the puzzle without telegraphing one singular pivotal moment to hold out for.
The non-linear structure definitely makes the film more successful, but to the degree that its success is almost entirely dependent on it. Without that and the rather predictable twist on which it hinges, you’re basically left with a hookup gone violently wrong that doesn’t really have enough substance to make a story worth telling in its own right. I found one of the film’s (many) attempts to deliberately bait its audience into sticking firmly with their existing perception of gender norms particularly egregious when I discovered only after watching that it was in fact a complete work of fiction. JT Mollner’s wordy, neither-here-nor-there response when asked if there was a real-life inspiration seemingly confirms this:
Perhaps! [laughs] And I would encourage you to do as much research as you'd like, and decide for yourself how much truth you feel like there is in the movie. I'd rather not get deeply into that – because at this point before the movie comes out, I feel like getting too deeply into the inspirations for these crimes could end up venturing into spoiler territory! But to me, it's all real – inside my head and inside my heart! No, it feels very real to me, and hopefully it feels real to you after watching it.
JT Mollner, interviewed by Hannah Rose for CBR, 2024
A little white “based on a true story” lie could be forgiven, but boldly claiming to tell the story of “the most prolific and unique American serial killer of the 21st century” reads like a lazy ploy to ensure even the most casual observer of crime statistics will automatically assume it’s a man.
What saved the film for me was the final act (consisting of the last chapter and epilogue) which, frankly, was just a lot of fun, but somehow also manages to shoot itself in the foot at the last hurdle.
[Willa Fitzgerald] has an uncanny Parker Posey-esque ability to infuse deadpan comedic delivery into every line of dialogue.
First, the good: by now we’re freed from the shackles of The Twist knowing that the Lady is less than ladylike, and can just enjoy seeing how this cat-and-mouse game plays out to its climax. Willa Fitzgerald, whose performance throughout is a wonder to behold, especially shines towards the end as you see her character’s seemingly unshakeable confidence slowly start to peel away while she realises her luck might have finally run out. Fitting for the film’s dark sense of humour, she has an uncanny Parker Posey-esque ability to infuse deadpan comedic delivery into every line of dialogue no matter what state of mind her character is in, and it never feels out of place.
The bad is not so much a disappointing creative choice, but rather, a problematic one. For all its attempts to subvert gender stereotypes, a short but pivotal scene in which the Lady evades arrest by pretending to be a victim of sexual assault swiftly undoes much of any good faith built towards the writer’s intentions behind doing so. Presumably impeded by a limited and insular lived experience of any actual gender inequality, Mollner girlbossed too close to the sun going full circle from “Hey, sexist pig! Women can be serial killers too, y’know! #FEMINISM” to “Believe them at your peril!”.
Strange Darling may fall short of the cleverness it seems to already be patting itself on the back for, but it did manage to deliver moments of genuine tension that kept me on edge, peppered with flashes of dark humour that prevented the story from becoming too dull. Its lead actors’ committed performances make for a compelling and worthwhile watch in their own right.
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