written by Charles Elmore
Strange Darling
written & directed by JT Mollner
Starring Willa Fitzgerald, Kyle Gallner, Ed Begley Jr., Barbara Hershey
**** stars - theatrical - first run
Willa Fitzgerald as The Lady in Strange Darling
JT Mollner’s hypnotic new thriller Strange Darling is an invigorating work of genre filmmaking. From the first frame, Mollner and his crew conduct a thrilling tour de force of filmmaking, showing that there is still life to be pulled out of the textural, psychological impact film can have on us as viewers.
In this waning summer season of movie releases, we seem to be experiencing an abundance of riches when it comes to horror, suspense, and thriller offerings in 2024. So far this year, we've seen Longlegs, Trap, MaXXXine, In a Violent Nature—and that’s just in the past few months, with more still to come. Of all the films I had on my radar, I must admit Strange Darling wasn’t initially one of them. Based on early reports from SXSW 2023, it sounded not too dissimilar to Longlegs or Cuckoo—at least at a cursory glance. However, once I found a moment to take a closer look, my curiosity was immediately piqued.
Like many, I was immediately intrigued by the involvement of its director of photography, Giovanni Ribisi. Ribisi, a gifted actor who began his career in TV and sitcoms in the 1980s, moved into more notable roles as an adult in the '90s. He played Frank Jr. in Friends and Chad in Tom Hanks’ That Thing You Do. He’s memorable in the '99 remake of the '60s TV show Mod Squad and has one of the most heartbreaking scenes in Saving Private Ryan as medic Wade. If you haven't seen his work in films like Richard Linklater’s Suburbia or the many other great entries in his filmography, you should definitely check them out. He’s exceptional. So, when I first saw his name listed as a cinematographer, I had to look it up to confirm: Is this the same guy?
It is the same guy, and the thrilling work on display here makes me hope Ribisi continues down this path. The tension, ever-shifting perspectives, and intensity in Strange Darling are gorgeous. What's more surprising than its visual beauty is how intentionally told this film is. It digs into what you think it will be and twists a knotty, brutal grip of gender dynamics and storytelling around your throat, not letting go for 119 minutes.
What Mollner, Ribisi, and the two leads, Willa Fitzgerald as The Lady and Kyle Gallner as The Demon, have achieved with Strange Darling is an astonishing throwback to dark, thrilling, complex psychological thrillers. The cat-and-mouse structure is cleverly designed with a distinctly '90s vibe. What Mollner and the filmmaking crew—cast and craft alike—create is a constant, visceral dance of tension, creative visual revelation, and a bouquet of filmmaking tricks.
From its marketing, Strange Darling is pitched as a one-night stand gone wrong turned serial-killer chase—and smartly so. You’re led to expect a run-of-the-mill adult thriller: a hapless woman escapes the torturous clutches of a murderous man who may have been doing nefarious things to her just minutes before the title card appears. A murderous, unconventional chase ensues.
Strange Darling opens with a loaded question “Are you a serial killer?”. It’s asked- mostly in jest but though entirely loaded with dread by the Lady, played by Ella Fitzgerald, to a rugged Boy Scout type (Gallner) sitting in the drivers seat of an expensive pickup, parked outside a roadside motel. The type that bills by the hour. From there a playful game of dos and don’ts, consents and boundaries are set by this nervous young woman (Fitzgerald) for whats about to go down in that motel.
Once inside their energy is clumsy, with power roles shifting from seduction to seduction, until this two-step dance quickly escalates into a tautly choreographed sprint through the minefield of modern dating, sexual boundaries, and power dynamics.
from there the film becomes something akin to Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer told like a gender-flipped, psycho-sexual Tom-and-Jerry rom-com unfolding over six crosscutting chapters and shifting perspectives. Throughout Mollner doesn’t just wink at the anxiety surrounding today’s fraught sexual politics and gender dynamics; he upends them, escalating the tension into something kinkier and deadlier.
Fitzgerald and Gallner are commanding as The Lady and The Demon, and Fitzgerald’s hypnotically feral performance gives Amy Elliot Dunne a run for her sociopathic money. This is a sort of cat-and-mouse game between Gallner and her becomes one where you can’t quite tell who is the cat and who is the mouse.
The game they play is deliciously intense, with Gallner, Fitzgerald at Mollner ratcheting up the tension to the shocking denouement. Fitzgerald, in particular, tears into her role, but Gallner’s performance is equally gripping. It all builds into a climactic confrontation that sometimes feels like Rutger Hauer in The Hitcher, with shades of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper -1974) and I Spit On Your Grave (Meir Zarchi -1978). Also, as an aside between this and In A Violent Nature, the calming and peaceful tranquility of a nice meditative forest is having quite a moment.
There’s also a phenomenal appearance by Ed Begley Jr. and Barbara Hershey as an oddly sanguine, doomsday-prepping hippie couple living in rural Oregon. Their grand craftsman home is surrounded by loudspeakers blaring a mysterious sermon- or warning, though it’s unclear where it’s coming from or whether it’s a warning for outsiders or directed to the inhabitants inside.
The level of commitment to craft on display in Strange Darling elevates what might at first glance feel like just another attempt at a kind of Eli Roth or Rob Zombie grindhouse exercise churned through another Quentin Tarantino cinematic look pack. Instead, Mollner and crew seem intent on accomplishing more than just an aesthetic short hand for cool effect— Strange Darling delights in dedicating as much attention if not more to the dramatic stakes of the story and its structure as it does on its (bordering on) ostentatious aesthetics. Strange Darling isn’t all just winky references to films from a grittier, bygone era- softened and blunted for a flat-screen 4k crowd at home. From its use of color throughout the photography, costume and set design, to how simplistic the story’s structure is so meticulously shattered and then re-ordered to maximal effect. The film's telling in six chapters isn’t necessarily told in chronological order, but in a precise sequence that Mollner engineers perfectly for the story.
The film constantly surprises, never taking you where you expect. Just when you think you know, it goes even further, making you feel like you’re in capable hands. It all culminates in a deeply gratifying experience at the cinema and one worth seeking out in the abundance of genre fare available to audiences today. Strange Darling is a work of highly of confident genre-bending cinema - both timely and timeless.
-Charles Elmore