Director/Screenplay – J.T. Mollner, Producers – Bill Block, Chris Ivan Cevic, Roy Lee, Giovanni Ribisi & Steven Schneider, Photography – Giovanni Ribisi, Music – Craig DeLeon, Songs – Z. Berg, Visual Effects – Temprimental VFX (Supervisor – Raoul York Bolognini), Special Effects Supervisor – Michael Valenzuela, Prosthetic & Makeup Effects – Vincent Guastini, Production Design – Priscilla Elliott. Production Company – VVS Films/Magenta Light Studios.
Cast
Willa Fitzgerald (The Lady), Kyle Gallner (The Demon), Ed Begley Jr (Frederick), Barbara Hershey (Genevieve), Steven Michael Quezada (Pete), Madisen Beaty (Gale), Bianca A. Santos (Tanya), Denise Grayson (Libby)
Plot
A woman flees from a man as he shoots at her with a gun. She takes refuge with an aging hippie couple. Things all began earlier the night before as the man and woman met up on a date and engaged in sadomasochistic sex. This led to a series of games where things started to go wrong.
Strange Darling was the second film for J.T. Mollner who had previously made the Western Outlaws and Angels (2016). The interesting name of the credits is that of Giovanni Ribisi, an actor known for roles in everything from Saving Private Ryan (1998) and Gone in 60 Seconds (2000) to Avatar (2009). Ribisi not only produces the film but also acts as its cinematographer. And quite a good job he does too – the film proudly announces on its opening credits “Shot entirely on 35 mm.” It opens in an explosion of colour that is welcome relief from the inundation of tedious colour desaturated and washed-out films we have had in recent years, reminding us of all that we have lost in the move to digital.
J.T. Mollner immediately throws us into the midst of it with foot to the pedal in a car chase with Willa Fitgerald being pursued by Kyle Gallner in pickup truck down a country road, before he stops and starts shooting at her with a shotgun, and then of her fleeing through the woods. It seems the set-up for what you would assume is a typical
Backwoods Brutality film.
It is also announced that the film comes in six chapters (plus an epilogue). What becomes apparent as we watch is that the chapters are being shown in non-linear, non-chronological order. Strange Darling is a film that every bit of the way uses this to mess with you and make you think one thing before turning it on its head and confounding your expectations, even as to who the killer is. There are a lot of clever things done with setting things up to go in one direction, before later chapters show the reality playing out in a very different way.
This has considerable effect, particularly the first segment that cuts from the furious opening pursuit through the countryside and woods to Kyle Gallner and Willa Fitzgerald having a flirtatious conversation in his truck, which becomes apparent is a hook-up. There are a startling series of cuts from her asking him “Are you a serial killer?” to him shirtless with his biceps rippling as he strangles her, all before this is turned on its head and we see her telling him “harder.” She then orders him to stop, before he becomes aggressive and cuffs her to the bedhead and starts attacking her again, which then is overturned by a cut back to the conversation in the truck with them discussing boundaries and her telling him that she wants him to keep going even when she says “no.”
One of the big surprises (among a reasonable cast of name actors) is Ed Begley Jr and Barabara Hershey as an aging hippie doomsday prepper couple living in the woods. They have an hilarious intro making a breakfast (that leaves you wondering how they don’t weight three times the size they do), talking about [Sas]Quatches lurking in the woods, competing over a Joanie Loves Chachi (1982-3) jigsaw and welcoming Willa Fitzgerald into the house, before everything there is turned on its head. It all works very satisfyingly right until the very last scene of the film.
