Fresh

Fresh is a really smart movie. Like, I knew going in much of the basic premise, but the movie spends a good half hour introducing you to the two main characters and setting up his rom-com meet-cute scenario that totally disarms you (sorry for the pun) and makes you forget what you’re watching. So when the movie kicks into the next gear (using the title sequence to separate the rom-com section from the cannibal section), it actually hit like a blindside. It’s very well done. The movie that follows is equally well done. Sebastian Stan does a great job being this cool, charmingly goofy guy who also happens to kidnap and parts out women to a cannibal subculture. For a while, the movie blends horror and comedy very well, until it needs to focus on the horror. And even then, it still adds in the occasional joke (the very end, when a supporting character comes to rescue the women, plays on a trope in a hilarious way). Daisy Edgar-Jones shows both a strength and vulnerability in equal measure when the mood calls for it. I loved just about everything about this movie. My only nitpicks are the slightly tropey ending that has the main characters make a decision that is a horror movie victim decision and not a decision a person with a functioning brain would do, and one of messaging. Fresh deals in themes about sisterhood and the perils of modern dating and the dancing done within it, especially from a woman’s point of view, using the trappings of a horror movie and cannibalism to discuss it. But the messaging isn’t always as clear or as strong as it could be. I don’t need it bashed over my head like some movies (Black Christmas 2019), and it’s certainly not so ambiguous as to just be “we’re saying something about something but not saying anything” (Initiation, They/Them), but sometimes it feels like it’s pulling punches when it should be throwing haymakers. It’s not the worst crime, and it doesn’t make it a bad movie. Just that it sets a bar it can’t always hit. But I can live with that, because it’s still smart as hell, superbly directed, acted, and scored. Easy recommendation … just don’t watch it hungry.