Strange Darling grabs you by the collar and hurls you into its jagged, blood-streaked chaos. Beneath its bravado and fractured timelines lies a story that needles at discomfort, leaving you questioning your own instincts. At its core, it’s a tale of shifting power, one that toys with your empathy before complicating it further. What stands out isn’t just the raw, unrelenting craft or love for fragmented timelines, but the spaces in between—the silences that weigh heavier than the violence, the tension that seeps into your bones.
The film drops you headfirst into an opening car chase: Willa Fitzgerald’s “The Lady,” bloodied and fleeing in cinematic red scrubs, chased by Kyle Gallner’s menacing “The Demon.” Predator? Prey? It doesn’t matter.Their deadly dance doesn’t bother with moral clarity. Instead, it revels in shared brutality, peeling back layers of fragmented humanity. Neither is wholly redeemable, yet both demand your attention.
Gallner channels raw chaos, but it’s Fitzgerald who truly holds the screen—feral, fragile, terrifying. Hers is a performance steeped in contradictions: she is a hurricane of menace and vulnerability, wrapped in the trope of the “dangerous woman.” But for whose gaze is this character shaped? This tension between fascination and discomfort forms the film’s most compelling layer.
Yet, Strange Darling is more than a two-character show. You briefly encounter odd bystanders, like Frederick and Genevieve, with their surreal Art Bell-style radio broadcasts crackling through speakers on their property. The absurdity feels deliberate, even if these moments flirt with distraction rather than depth.
What unsettled me most was a scene of The Demon strangling The Lady—before revealing that she had asked for it. It’s a jarring exploration of consent and control, one that leaves you squirming. The discomfort isn’t accidental. When The Lady speaks about how casual encounters are a potential death sentence for women, it echoes a gendered reality: stating that for women, even desire comes with the potential for violence. The film toys with this fear, creating a boogeywoman who demands that men confront the same terror.
Strange Darling thrives on its fractured timeline, presenting six out-of-order chapters that build tension and challenge perception. The nonlinear structure works, inviting you to piece together the puzzle. Each reveal adds complexity, though at times the film seems more invested in style than substance. Shot on 35mm film, its tactile visuals—saturated colors, inky shadows, and smoke-laden light—ground the chaos in a sensory immediacy. But even as the aesthetic impresses, it risks indulging in spectacle: the “mad” woman pursued by the “beast,” both bodies rendered as metaphors for destruction.
The film walks a precarious line between subversion and exploitation. Its gender politics flirt with sharp critique but often pull back, choosing provocation over deeper inquiry. Moments like The Lady and The Demon’s charged car conversation—a mutual dissection of fear and danger—spark something raw. Yet the film often skirts this potential, heightening rather than unpacking its themes.
And yet, when the big reveal lands, the film shifts gears into full-throttle chaos. Allegiances warp, but not entirely. It reminded me of Pearl: a grotesquely intimate character study of unraveling. Unlike Pearl, The Lady feels more elusive, her sadism darker, her mayhem louder and messier. The brilliance lies in the tension—watching her problem-solving long enough that we almost want her to succeed.
Could the film have leaned harder into its themes? Yes, but instead, it thrives in contradictions, dwelling in the messy intersection of fear, power, and desire.
This isn’t a clean takedown of patriarchal archetypes—it leans into discomfort, asking you to sit with its chaos. If you’re into slasher thrills and blood-soaked tension, give it a shot. Willa Fitzgerald as The Lady - Strange Darling is absolutely mesmerizing.
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