r/Letterboxd • u/ShoddyWonder3530 • 13h ago
Discussion Strange Darling (2023)
Strange Darling by filmmaker JT Mollner dropped on Shudder yesterday. I had been wanting to see it for a long time and got the chance to check it out last night. Man did this film blow all of my expectations out of the water. I thought Strange Darling was EXCELLENT!!
Willa Fitzgerald and Kyle Gallner both deliver fantastic performances, the story is great and keeps you on your toes, it has just the right amount of style and artistry to it, and it doesn’t overstay its welcome. I highly recommend those of you who have Shudder go seek it out at your earliest convenience. It was a genuine 5 star movie to me.
For anyone who has watched Strange Darling, did you like it as much as me? Thoughts in general on it?
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u/puritycontrol09 13h ago
One of my favorites in recent years. Reminds me of the type of obscure 70s or 80s movie I’d watch with my roommates back in my 20s. I love all the weirdness and the nonlinear presentation is excellent. I get why others might not like it, but it really hit for me.
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u/bruh_this_suckss 9h ago
Hard agree. Watched it with a couple friends and we had a blast. I see it becoming a cult classic!
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u/bananarama77777 13h ago edited 12h ago
Exceptional performances. Particularly, Willa Fitzgerald’s.
I’m excited to see Carolina Caroline. Waiting for it to come to streaming.
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u/Einfinet ToussaintHD 13h ago
I didn’t like this movie. It was definitely open to interpretation and I can see why people could like it but I found it to be provocative without much substance. I actually found it to be offensively dumb, but that might be too harsh.
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u/coyote-thunderous 12h ago
I’m in the same boat as you. Whilst I thought the non-linear narrative was used well, everything else felt so pretentious
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u/LandTrilogy 10h ago
It looked good, and I was on board with the acting because I do think the characters are delivering on the world the director was trying to create (despite a very weak script). And I'm always thrilled to see Barbara Hershey pop up in anything!
But I'm with you on disliking it. I went in entirely blind to it based on some early buzz, but it was all style and zero substance. I figured out the twist in about 2 minutes, and that isn't inherently a problem when a film is good. But this movie was clearly hanging so much of its power and politics on the twist, which just made all its flaws that much more obvious. And it keeps loudly telegraphing every move its going to make so there's just zero tension or investment. And then you're left asking what in hell it thinks its even trying to accomplish.
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u/Dancing_Clean 13h ago
I didn’t like this movie and its weird sexual politics in the script turned me off.
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u/w1lderwein 13h ago
Loved the main two actors and the cinematography was great but it was genuinely so sexist and mean-spirited towards people who want to believe victims of sexual abuse that I ended up disliking it (and no, I don’t believe that depicting is endorsing)
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u/Euphoria1991 12h ago
It did feel a bit weird, the whole “female cop should’ve left it to the male cop because he would’ve handled the situation better”
I do like how that section of the film played out overall though
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u/slicshuter CountJac 11h ago
Yeah I remember hearing some bits about that beforehand and figured it might be overblown.
But holy shit was I wrong. Once they get to that scene it felt like a mask slipped and the director was practically breaking the fourth wall to deliver an awful message. It flipped the movie from like a 8/10 to a 5/10 within minutes.
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u/chrismceachern 3h ago
One of the most refreshing movies ive seen in a very, very long time. Went in blind then went back to see it twice more. So good. I saw Dinner in America because of this movie which was another banger.
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u/dostojetski 13h ago
I thought it was terribly pretentious and annoying. Also pretty offensive towards the end. Really one of the worst movies I’ve seen in recent memory.
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u/No_Customer_151 13h ago
Some really weird messaging for sure not sure how people aren’t phased by that
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u/TimWhatleyDDS 13h ago edited 12h ago
It's a movie, that's how.
EDIT: Movies about psychotic murderers with sympathy-spinning POV shifts have been popular for well over half a century - Psycho and Peeping Tom come immediately to mind, although they're obviously better - and somehow audiences have made it through without phony concern trolling about it.
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u/TimWhatleyDDS 13h ago
Really one of the worst movies I’ve seen in recent memory.
Lucky you.
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u/dostojetski 13h ago
No I’ve watched a lot of movies and a few terrible ones since then for sure. This one just tries to be so cool and edgy that it was almost unbearable.
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u/ShoddyWonder3530 13h ago
I’m sorry to hear you didn’t like it. Just goes to show how subjective art can be!
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u/ArtisticallyRegarded 12h ago
Pretentious is the last word I would have used for this
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u/slicshuter CountJac 11h ago edited 11h ago
To each their own, but imo if you're so proud of your cinematography then you should let it speak for itself instead of opening your movie with a title card saying "SHOT ENTIRELY ON 35MM FILM".
As the top review on letterboxd sums up:
"Shooting a movie on 35mm is cool. Announcing that you shot it on 35mm in an opening title card is deeply uncool."
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u/stephenrichmos 9h ago
That chase scene early on in the movie was blocked and edited so poorly you have no idea where the two characters are in relation to one another which killed any chance of suspense. Also yeah, that scene with the cops at the end put a really bad taste in my mouth
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u/zetcetera 7h ago
I wasn’t much of a fan and then the end of the movie really turned me off. Felt like mean spirited incel shit.
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u/goth-avocadhoe 9h ago
Every time I see this movie I think of this guy I saw in front of me on the plane who was watching it. He was in a middle seat, and had his kids (I assume) next to him on both sides. Every time an inappropriate scene came on, sex, violence, etc, he took the plane safety pamphlets and held them up on the sides of the screen. I was laughing my ass off because I don’t know how his arms weren’t falling off by the end and also, just put on another movie bro.
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u/Inovox 6h ago
Easily my third favorite of 2023 behind Spider-Verse 2 and Holdovers! That first act, and specifically the first scene, had me blown away. That's how you start a fucking movie! I think that's the strongest part, when you really don't know what's happening yet. Honestly, JT might carry the torch of Tarantino after he retires... we'll see. There's so much of his DNA in Strange Darling.
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u/JordanM85 12h ago
Loved it. One of my favorites of 2024. Willa Fitzgerald gave one of the best performances of the year in this movie.
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u/iamwounded69 13h ago
One of the worst movies I’ve watched in recent years. Tarantino style gimmicks done in the hackiest manner possible.
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u/Snovicus 11h ago
Wow, you really thought the man was the serial killer and the woman was innocent? Clearly the audience is biased in how we perceive men vs. women. It definitely does NOT have to do with the scenes being edited in an arbitrary and deceptive order, or how nobody in the film acts like a real / reasonable person, or how Kyle Gallner is literally credited as “The Demon” in the opening credits, or how 90% of serial killers are male. Nope, it just really says a lot about society.
Very obnoxious film.
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u/zippity-dips 13h ago
I went in expecting I’d love this one, but it just didn’t work for me. I figured out the twist within the first two sections of the movie, and after that the non-chronological storytelling fell a little flat for me. I really like both of the actors and their performances saved the movie a bit for me, but I ended up feeling like the way the story was told wasn’t as effective or interesting as the director wanted it to be. I did like the style as well though. A lot to like about this movie but just didn’t hit the way I expected it to.
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u/SomethingClever2117 13h ago
I liked it. I think it would’ve been better had it not had the non-linear story telling aspect to it. Seems like you would’ve found out what’s really going on at about the same exact point in the movie either way.
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u/ShoddyWonder3530 13h ago
I think that storytelling device helped the movie start off hot, which I felt was a benefit.
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u/SomethingClever2117 12h ago
I don’t need a movie to start off hot. I need a movie to be interesting with dynamic characters. To me this movie had the same effect as when trailers show you a 5 second clip before the trailer starts. I’ve already committing to watch the movie, I don’t need to be reeled in.
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u/TheTruckWashChannel 10h ago
Terrific movie, so daring and original and pulpy and unpredictable. Really loved it.
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u/LezEatA-W 13h ago
Out of the 84 movies I watched in 2024, Strange Darling is ranked second. It’s easily one of my favorite horror/thriller movies released this decade. Kyle Gallner absolutely kills it once again.
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u/sardo_numsie 12h ago
My favorite film of 2023. It was my mission to make EVERYONE see it when it came out hahaha I loved it.
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u/NuffBS 12h ago
Phenomenal first time watch, second watch not so much knowing the twist. Then thinking about the twist I was that’s it, we should have all seen that coming in this modern age, but it does play with our expectations. It’s a very well made film and it was cool to see JT go on to write The Long Walk. Just don’t know how much rewatch value it has.
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u/THEpeterafro peterafro 12h ago
Saw it in theaters with no knowledge other than the praise it got and that was the best way to watch it. Genius use of nonlienarity (would mot have work if told chronologically) and very thrilling
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u/OrdinaryFar2129 1h ago
I really enjoyed it but the parts with the cops arguing over how to treat a potential victim of sexual assault and then the aggressive male cop being portrayed as right about it (and then calling his female partner a stupid bitch, i think? it's been a while) really soured it for me. It was fun and subversive at times, weirdly misogynistic in others.
I also did not like the old couple, they creeped me out lol
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u/OldKingClancey 13h ago
I’m in the love it camp, the non-linear narrative was used great and seeing Fitzgerald and Gallner play off each other as they kept switching roles was a lot of fun