Review: Strange Darling

Buckle up for a twisty, trashy ride.

The less you know about Strange Darling going in, the better. I’m going to steer clear of any overt spoilers, but just discussing the structure of the movie might lead to questions that I’d probably prefer the movie prompt itself. So, tread lightly or see the movie and come back after. If you need a TL;DR: I really liked it.

JT Mollner’s film starts with an opening crawl and narration informing us about an infamous serial killer who carved their way around the country before being apprehended in Oregon. The film depicts the final days of their killing spree. Right after, we see a woman credited only as The Lady (Willa Fitzgerald) running from a shotgun-toting man billed as The Demon (Kyle Gallner). 

What follows is “a thriller in six chapters” that plays out in a non-linear fashion and twists our understanding of who these two people are, how they came to meet and how their story plays out. It’s not too much to know that their relationship involves a one-night stand and some violent role play gone awry. But I’ll leave you to discover how a couple of elderly survivalists and Sasquatch believers (Ed Begley Jr. and Barbara Hershey) play into things. 

I’m normally skeptical of movies that make a show of mixing up their chronologies; it’s usually just a way to cover up for a weak screenplay. The best non-linear films tell their narratives that way because shaking things up plays into the themes the director wants to explore. Memento, Christopher Nolan’s best film (don’t @ me), is the gold standard (well, I suppose Citizen Kane technically is). And while I wouldn’t put Strange Darling quite in that upper echelon, it ably uses its unique structure to explore its themes and make us re-examine our perspectives. 

Mollner plays with our expectations of the genre and the way the serial killer/prey dynamic traditionally plays out in movies. We assume certain relationships and slot personalities into specific buckets in these films, and Strange Darling plays with our initial interpretations and constantly upends them, shedding more light into who these characters are, how their relationship developed and what that might mean for the people they encounter along the way. It constantly pulls the rug out from under us with wicked glee and a dark sense of humor, cutting back and forth between its chapters and returning to its cliffhangers with more information that we went in with. Fifteen minutes in, I was giddy when I realized I had no idea what the hell kind of story this was; an hour later, it was enthralling to end up back at the “beginning” with an entirely different view. It’s a hoot. 

While it’s mostly a stylistic exercise, it’s a masterfully composed one. Mollner, who also wrote the screenplay, has a great knack for keeping the audience on its toes and drawing out suspense both through chase sequences and conversations. There’s an entire stretch of the film that takes place inside a hotel room and explores the shifting power dynamics during the lead up to a sexual escapade in which every action and every line of dialogue invites more questions and asks us to ponder how this plays into the bloody spree to follow. The cinematography – by actor Giovanni Ribisi – is gorgeous. The story boasts early on that it’s filmed in 35mm, and it pays off. The colors pop, with scenes saturated in dark reds, cool blues and bright yellows that lend to the intensity. There are also several striking compositions – a shot of a man choking someone offscreen is terrifying at first and then turned on its head when we understand what’s actually happening in that moment later on. A scene where The Lady smokes a cigarette in the woods is quietly gorgeous, the smoke neatly filtering through the bands of light in the trees. This is a brutal movie in some places, but a beautiful one. 

The movie is largely a two-hander, and the couple at its core is fantastic. Gallner’s bopped around in a few horror movies, including Scream (2022) and Smile, and he ably navigates the various shades of The Demon. He’s by turns terrifying and pathetic, depending what the screenplay reveals at that time. Willa Fitzgerald, who only has a few credits to her name, is even better, giving one of the most ferocious performances of the year. Because of the nature of the story and what it reveals about her character, she has to run the gamut of emotions and personalities, and she’s utterly fantastic. To call too much out about either actor’s performance would risk spoiling the film, but I’ll just single out the final shot of the movie, a long oner on Fitzgerald that feels like the horror movie flipside to the final shot in Michael Clayton. Fitzgerald is amazing in this, and I anticipate we’ll see a lot more of her. 

The rest of the ensemble is fine. There’s a sweetly weird relationship between Begley and Hershey explored in a mid-movie montage. And I was delighted to see Breaking Bad’s  Steven Michael Quesada show up late in the film. Unfortunately, when the film reaches its final chapter and introduces the last batch of characters, it’s already tipped its hand and played all its cards, leaving the final act feeling obligatory and a touch predictable. It’s not bad – and it’s the logical end point of the story – but the movie had done so well keeping the audience off balance and guessing about what would happen next that it’s a trifle disappointing that the final 15 minutes play out more or less exactly as we expect. 

But when it’s cooking, Strange Darling is a beautifully composed and fiercely acted ride – and while it’s violent, it thankfully doesn’t linger on gore or shoot to disturb the way other recent serial killer movies do. It simply wants to keep us guessing and reassessing our interpretations and it largely does so wonderfully. It’s a great late-summer entry.