Written and directed by JT Mollner
Cute bits of table-turning can’t redeem Strange Darling, JT Mollner’s story of a hellish one-night stand, but it won’t waste a minute presenting you sexual violence, non-sexual violence, accompanying gore, and the most disgusting breakfast you’ll see this year. It’s not long before it becomes obvious it’d all be painfully straightforward were it not for its nonlinear storytelling. Once that jig’s up, Strange Darling stands naked.
It starts with female lead Willa Fitzgerald running through a field (in slow motion, of course) blood running down her neck, and a man, played by Kyle Gallner, chasing after her with a rifle, looking mighty threatening. We’ve been told by a pre-movie text scroll we’re witnessing the final hours of a cross-state serial killer spree, so already we’re filling in the blanks about the likely atrocities committed by this crazed man chasing a terrified woman.
There’s a lot of heavy breathing to follow from our two leads, and Strange Darling puts in the work too, yet its industriousness is both a vice and a virtue. To the good, the structure of Mollner’s movie is pieced together so that its twists have maximum effect, and while it puts Strange Darling on the front foot for its runtime, it’s also the part of the movie with the shortest shelf life. Fool me once, as they say.
It can seem callous to fault a film for working too hard, but it’s the case here, where Strange Darling’s need to call attention to itself only keeps enjoyment at bay, painting itself in a way only film bros think is artistic. It recalls grindhouse movies with their booming soundtracks, sudden shocks, loud title graphics, and mangles it all with zero sense of rhythm.
As evidence of his adulation of “the good old days,” Mollner opens his movie with a notice telling us the entire thing’s shot on 35mm film, as if expecting applause, but most likely only earning a few hoots at an Alamo Drafthouse somewhere. Then he stuffs his film full of slow-mo sequences over which music plays, but wherein nothing happens, clearly confusing it for style and neglecting actual storytelling in the process.
Strange Darling does pop visually, with a pleasing color swatch, but actor-turned-cinematographer Giovanni Ribisi shoots it like it’s his first time out, which it is to some extent, as his resume claims only a handful of shorts and music videos. In a movie whose scenes are either full of violence or an overt threat thereof, Ribisi takes the sting out of much of it, essentially performing the equivalent job of the guy who blurs genitals in pornography.
Also like porn: Mollner’s characters and how dumb they are. Movies like this are greased with bad, sometimes inexplicable decisions, so forgiveness usually lives in my heart, but Strange Darling pushes that grace to the limit. Just one example is when a character, moments ago horrified, stops running through the woods to have a seat and a smoke, billows of smoke swirling like clouds around them while a killer steadily nears.
Story and characters combine for about five pounds of chowder sloshing around in a 20-pound bag in JT Mollner’s grindhouse thriller, a movie that feels as if Mollner has a shrine to Quentin Tarantino in his basement. Only problem is he doesn’t have Tarantino’s sense for dialogue, eye for composition, or swashbuckling style. Strange Darling isn’t dull, a short runtime and mankind’s innate want for closure won’t let it come to that, but it is tepid and far from the thrilling, gear-switching ride it so desperately wants to be.
Mikkel Frederiksen 