Movie Breakdown: Fresh (Noah)

Pre-Screening Stance:

Everything I’ve seen involving this movie leaves an oil slick of creepiness on my heart. Which is a good thing. Especially when that oil slick involves Sebastian Stan and Daisy Edgar-Jones.

Post-Screening Ramble:

I think there’s a good metaphor somewhere buried in the freak-fest that is Fresh. I think there’s something to be said about the horrors of dating in the modern world and how women are, more often than not, still viewed as just objects to contain, or throw dick pics at, or to pummel with all of your most abhorrent behavior. I just don’t know if director Mimi Cave ever actually gets to it. Instead, Fresh is a decidedly horrifying film about a relationship that goes very, very badly. Daisy Edgar-Jones plays Noa, a sort of late game millennial struggling with the world of dating and with her own role in life. Sebastian Stan plays Steve, an off-kilter, grocery store pick-up that goes so right before a weekend trip away goes decidedly wrong. There’s a wicked streak of dark humor that runs through the film – a needed one with the subject matter at hand – and Stan is pretty great as a bad, bad man who’s convinced himself otherwise. But, amidst all the super tight close-ups of mouths and swelling 80s jams and gore-soaked horror montages, the deeper message I think Mimi Cave is trying to get at never really surfaces. Instead this a solid b-movie with a touch of something better hanging on the edges.

One Last Thought:

The horrific part of this film for me isn’t the actual grossness on display, it’s me trying to cope with the lives these fictional characters are going to live in the aftermath of their injuries. Yeesh.