Strange Darling
Spoiler warning: Out of necessity, I have to reveal the plot in order to discuss my opinions of this film.
On the surface, this movie is fun to watch. It’s suspenseful and propulsive, and features a great performance by the lead actor, Willa Fitzgerald. However, I ended up disliking it after giving it a few minutes’ thought.
Another spoiler warning, just in case…
In an opening crawl, the movie tells us that a serial killer went on a rampage, and then proceeds to show, in a non-linear fashion, a man menacingly hunting down a woman, with flashbacks to them meeting for a one-night stand. But then, plot twist! It’s actually the woman who’s a serial killer, and the man is trying to catch her after their sexy rendezvous ended with her drugging and assaulting him.
My first problem with the film is that the plot is quite simple aside from the twist, and it tries really hard to make sure that the twist is surprising. Telling the story out of chronological order doesn’t serve much purpose other than to delay the reveal.
But the much bigger problem for me is that the twist itself feels really gross. When I was a kid, people used to tell a riddle that went something like this:
A man and his son get into a car accident. The man dies instantly, and the boy is rushed to hospital in critical condition. The doctor takes one look at the boy and says, “I can’t operate on him. This is my son.”
How is this possible?
With the answer being, of course, that the doctor is the boy’s mother. I wonder if this riddle would even “work” on people anymore, but back in the 80’s and 90’s, it was a “gotcha!” way of critiquing gender bias.
Strange Darling is kind of doing the same thing, but in a darker way. It’s basically saying that we need to question the “biased” assumption that men inflict violence on women more often than the other way around. It also implies that women can get away with murder (figuratively, and in this case, literally) because they’re so good at playing the victim. It’s an ugly message that I can only interpret as misogynistic, whether that was the filmmakers’ intention or not.
