I always find it odd how Hollywood continually imports acting talent from the rest of the English speaking world when there are so many accomplished American actors with movie star attributes working in TV. Big time movie stars like Meryl Streep and Nicole Kidman can now drop down to TV, but a stigma persists regarding promoting TV stars to movie roles. Willa Fitzgerald should have gotten attention from Hollywood following her lead role in the Scream TV series, but a minor role in 2019's The Goldfinch is as close as she's gotten to mainstream cinema. Any doubts over whether Fitzgerald has what it takes to be a big screen lead are dispelled within minutes of director JT Mollner's Strange Darling. Fitzgerald grabs our attention from the off and holds us in a vice-like grip as she delivers one of the most electric performances of recent indie cinema.
Opening with a Jason Patric-narrated Texas Chain Saw Massacre-like text crawl that explains how the movie you're about to see details the end of a serial killer's rampage, the movie then tells us to expect six chapters. Expectations are immediately confounded when we're first presented with Chapter 3. It opens with a bloodied Fitzgerald, who is credited as "The Lady," at the wheel of a '70s sportscar, barrelling down the Oregon backroads as she flees from "The Demon" (indie horror stalwart Kyle Gallner), who shoots out her tyre, causing her to crash and resume fleeing on foot.
Mollner instantly forces us to wonder what occurred in the first two chapters, and we assume that all is probably not what it seems. The Lady is clad in a red outfit that might either be that of an escaped convict or a hospital porter, but the choice of colour and the situation she's in bring to mind Red Riding Hood. The Demon is dressed like Elmer Fudd, and the film's early out-of-order chapters, which consist of his pursuit of his prey, play like a violent live-action Looney Tunes cartoon. But wait, The Demon's plaid jacket is as red as The Lady's outfit. Just who is Red Riding Hood and who is the big bad wolf in this analogy?
Chopping up the film's chapters keeps us guessing as to who is really the villain and victim here, but it's never that simple. When we get to the first chapter we see this scenario began with a rather awkward one-night stand between the duo. Across a couple of broken up chapters there's almost a two-handed play within the film as The Lady and The Demon play a cat and mouse series of sexual power games. These scenes play as though heavily influenced by Polanski, with The Lady, now clad in a sexy wig (red, of course), constantly prodding and poking at The Demon's fragile masculinity.
The eventual twist is so obvious that you'll probably have it figured out long before the film starts to drop clues. Strange Darling's aesthetic is influenced by '70s American horror (it features gorgeous 35mm lensing by actor Giovanni Ribisi, making his debut as cinematographer), but the twist is straight out of a British thriller from that era, which I'm certainly not going to name and spoil it for anyone who may not have figured it out. I'm not sure the non-linear structure obscures the truth any more than if the film had played out in chronological order, but it does add an undeniably thrilling effect of keeping us guessing as to where the storytelling is next headed.
One diversion introduces Barbara Hershey and Ed Begley Jr as an old hippy couple, and their dynamic is so great you wish they had been given more screen time. The movie is generally played straight, but Mollner follows Hitchcock's lead in deflating the tension with the odd comic interlude, and Fitzgerald and Gallner are as funny as they are scary. It's difficult to get into just how good the leads are, especially Fitzgerald, without ruining much of the fun. Suffice to say they're both gifted roles that allow them to display their range, often on the turn of a phrase, charming one moment, terrifying the next, charismatic throughout. I suspect Strange Darling may even prove more rewarding on a second viewing when you're less focussed on plot details and can soak up the dynamic between its leads. Mollner, Fitzgerald and Gallner may sound like a legal firm, but they've combined to make a thriller so distinctive in its delights it should have Hollywood execs pursuing all three like Elmer Fudd chasing a pesky wabbit.
Directed by: JT Mollner
Starring: Willa Fitzgerald, Kyle Gallner, Ed Begley Jr., Barbara Hershey
