DO REVENGE is a Rare Win For Netflix

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 I got so comfortable with the idea that we can assume Netflix original movies are terrible unless they're from trusted name-brand auteurs and/or play at a trusted name-brand festival. And here comes Jennifer Kaytin Robinson with what is instantly one of my favorite films of the year. The set up is perfect for a tacky thriller: "Riverdale" star Camila Mendes and "Stranger Things" breakout Maya Hawke hatch a plan to "do revenge" on each other's bully. It's a deliberate Hitchcock bite, in a movie that is absolutely full of deliberate bites from "Heathers", "Mean Girls", "Cruel Intentions", and just about every high school movie from 20+ years ago. So what makes "Do Revenge" work? Simply put, when I expect it to go one way (scoring easy layups by updating those earlier movies to 2020s standards of feminism), it goes the opposite way (a full embrace of how evil its psychotic characters can be). 

 The plot is derivative. Drea (Mendes) has her photos leaked by her ex-boyfriend, and wants revenge, so she brings on new girl Nora (Hawke) to fake her way into the popular group and expose them. It's been done plenty before, and that's fine because the script doesn't take that plot very seriously. I was not fond of the 10ish minutes that seemed to sincerely be about Nora losing herself in the popular crowd, but it's brief and it becomes easier to overlook once the movie has a big twist reveal shortly after. The real attraction is the revenge itself, which in the vein of "Heathers" is both pretty funny and the exact right amount of convoluted to keep you guessing where it goes next. 

 Early in the film, Drea makes the astute observation that women can punished socially, very easily, in a huge variety of ways, but men are basically untouchable. You then expect the movie to show something the opposite of that, but instead the thriller handles the real world mentality towards young women head-on, and that is its greatest strength. Nora wants revenge against another woman who outed her, and that bully gets easily disposed of before the movie hits the 1 hour point. Camila Mendes' tormentor is a lot tougher to take down. For most of the run time he's able to spin the smear attempts against him as positive, even progressive traits. (The humor is hit and miss when it gets into its aggressively Gen-Z dialogue, but most of the best jokes are variations of the ex-boyfriend using social justice language to defend himself) The process of trying to take him down mostly results in destroying other women. I think Sophie Turner's acting performance as a cocaine-addicted student sent off to rehab is rather poor, but her character fills a very interesting role. Drea is punished for having her photos leaked more than her boyfriend is punished for leaking them, and this is bad. But at the same time, Drea seems to take just as much (if not more!) offense to other women making mean jokes about the photos than she does about her boyfriend leaking them, and she's more successful at punishing other women than she is at punishing her boyfriend. Drea doesn't realize any of this hypocrisy until a bonkers twist. Making a feminist revenge thriller where women absorb most of the damage probably won't be satisfying to the "depiction=endorsement" twitter and letterboxd crowd, but that dilemma is grounded in reality and thus a lot more interesting to me. 

 The big twist is fascinating in much the same way, because it somehow makes both female leads a lot less likable. Robinson's world is full of narcissism and tearing down other women, collateral damage and ruining people who are ostensibly on your side. I like that. Movies these days, especially movies about women and especially movies aimed at teenagers, are far too nice. They're full of writers absolutely terrified that the teenage girl audience might find their characters something less than perfect people who have correct politics and make good decisions. (I could probably write a thousand words just on movies that are extremely guilty of this, but for the sake of being specific I'll throw "Zola" and "The Eyes Of Tammy Faye" under the bus as a couple that frustrated me. Those films don't want anyone to think their main characters are unlikable, so those characters just become passive bodies that don't *do* anything. Hulu original "Not Okay", 2022's other notable movie subverting this trend, winks so aggressively at the audience for having an "unlikable female protagonist" that I was worried the writer would pop a cornea.) But most of those 90s teen movies are classics precisely because they lean in to how evil teenagers can be. "Do Revenge" is a sleek and enjoyable throwback to when Hollywood trusted that young people can handle some nastiness.

⭐⭐⭐⭐

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