Hannah Rose

“Strange Darling doesn’t just subvert audience expectations. It takes them, sharpens them on a whetstone and weaponizes them, turning them on the viewers. Everything about this movie is deliberately set up to upend everything the average movie viewer thinks they know or believe. This applies both in a narrative sense, and even in a meta-societal context. It’s almost shocking how flagrantly Strange Darling uses society’s expectations against the viewer. It borders on a subtle form of social commentary. Upon first viewing, one cannot help but feel personally betrayed and tricked by the story – albeit in the best way.

Many of the most effective psychological thrillers benefit from deception. They thrive on ambiguity. The less the audience knows what’s going on or the more misleading the premise, the better. Of course, the film must, at the very least, set up a few themes, character interactions and atmosphere to make a strong first impression, and psych its viewer up into the intended mindset. It’s imperative that the movie makes the audience feel a certain way to start, only to twist the knife in some way and call into question everyone’s beliefs. Strange Darling does all of this and more. This deliberate subversion has an immense payoff, giving Strange Darling one of the finest and most cathartic closing scenes in the genre.

Strange Darling is as dark, bloody and against the grain of a film as one can get. It’s the ultimate interplay of sex and violence. In the hands of any other director or streaming service, Strange Darling would be a monochromatic hellscape of black, gray, and maybe blue or brown to convey a nihilistic despair. However – and thankfully – it is instead the product of Mollner, who from the movie’s inception had a distinct palette and visual style in mind. He employed his producer and director of photograpy, Giovanni Ribisi, to bring this unique vision to life.

In the last decade, many so-called “serious” genres – action, drama, science fiction, horror and thrillers – have been greatly desaturated, both on the big screen and on TV. There has been this pervasive trend towards making things look as dark, drab and gritty as possible, perhaps in a misguided attempt to look “realistic.” This color trend – or lack thereof – came to prominence during the financial and societal unrest around the world, with the media reflecting, and perhaps perpetuating, this gloomy mood within the collective. However, in the few years following the nadir of the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a gear shift, led by the more enterprising creators and directors, towards more experimental palettes, to compliment more creative storytelling. Strange Darling is one such film, and perhaps could set new trends for the remainder of the decade.”

“Yamazaki remains true and aware of the Godzilla mythos. This is most apparent in the film’s potentially most iconic scene when Godzilla descends upon the Ginza district and rampages amongst the panicked and fleeing populace, a clear homage to the original, iconic 1950s iteration. However, his writing and directing approach give Godzilla Minus One its distinct identity, which resonates with the next generation as much as it does with those who grew up with the franchise. Setting the story in the past allows for a sense of distance. While some critics might protest this as skirting the current global anxieties of the early 2020s, Yamazaki’s choice to set the film in Godzilla’s era of origin proved not only wise — forgoing timeliness for timelessness and ensuring this film’s enduring impact — but especially effective, poignant, and ultimately necessary, making the themes of war, its consequences, despair, and the callous expendability of life, all integral to the story.”

“Clearly, Cheslik did not make Hundreds of Beavers for the sensitive or literal-minded. This is for the best, for his and Brickson Cole Tew’s brand of off-color physical comedy is a refreshing addition to an international cultural and cinematic landscape that has, arguably, taken itself too seriously for too long. Their movie comes hot on the heels of the end of the so-called Golden Age of TV and the 2023 Hollywood Strikes. This was an era where serious dramas marked by moral ambiguity, emotional complexity and intensity, and serious violence ruled the roost. Hundreds of Beavers is the spiritual antithesis of this era, and potentially a marker of a new epoch. Here, laughter transgressed language and cultural borders. Its brand of comedy also purposefully and gleefully defied good taste and fragile social mores. Slapstick needs no translation, for the universal experience of physical pain and its relatable humor comes across without subtitles. Also adding to the movie’s broad international appeal is its minimal to nonexistent dialogue. The majority of the film is told via pantomime, with the appropriately timed screams, sobs, laughs, whistles, grunts, squeaks and retches in between. At most, there are only a handful of spoken lines in only the most necessary — and humorous — places.”