Starring Netflix in-house talents Camila Mendes and Maya Hawke as a pair of "wounded teenage battlefield soldiers," Do Revenge blends the social satire of Clueless and the psychological thrills of Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train. Sensitivities, however, are strictly conveyed.
A beaming Mendes stars as Drea Torres, a social climber who becomes a social outcast after a private video of her is leaked online, presumably by her jerk boyfriend, destroying the "perfect life" she meticulously created for herself over 17 years. years. In her ironic introductory narrative, Drea compares herself to Icarus. "I flew too close to the sun and my boyfriend leaked my sex tape," she deadpans. Drea never fit in with the wealthy crowd at her school and there is a feeling that despite her best efforts to assimilate from her, she never stopped feeling like an impostor.
Director: Jennifer Kaytin Robinson
Writers: Celeste Ballard, Jennifer Kaytin Robinson
Stars: Camila Mendes, Maya Hawke, Austin Abrams
Her emotional foil is a shy girl named Eleanor, played by Hawke. Eleanor hides in the shadows, never leaves her house on the weekends, and has a pet lizard named Oscar winner Olivia Colman as her best friend. But more importantly, she's the only one who didn't see Drea's private video. The two don't know it yet, but they're already on their way to becoming best friends.
After meeting at a tennis club over the summer, maybe a shout out to Strangers on a Train? — Drea and Eleanor discover they can be vulnerable with each other without being bothered by high school hierarchies. They bond over the betrayals they have suffered at the hands of people they thought they could trust. While Drea's ex humiliated her in front of the entire school (and the world), she even had the audacity to go out with her best friend right after they broke up, Eleanor was accused of assault by the only person she knew. she had confessed. “Injured people hurt people,” Eleanor's therapist told her. But she didn't buy it. Teenagers are evil, she declares, and she would do anything to see her tormentor burn. As would Drea. And this is when, standing side by side in a nondescript bathroom, they come up with the harebrained plan to "get revenge" on each other's behalf.
At two hours long, Do Revenge could have been much more effective if Robinson had figured herself out to cut 20 minutes. The viewing experience would have been smoother and the satire would have been sharper. But a twist in the final act is so delightfully subversive, and effortlessly foreshadowed, that you can't help but forgive the film for some of its earlier missteps, including some pacing issues that loom in the second act.
No metaphorically charged high school sitcom, at least in the last decade, can come close to the brilliance of Brian Duffield's Spontaneous. And Do Revenge doesn't either, but it's easy to leave behind its spirit of crushing the patriarchy and its clarity of vision. Especially when the 'villain', played by Timothée Chalamet-light Austin Abrams, is so utterly irredeemable. And Robinson isn't afraid to push her heroines over the edge, either. No spoilers, but at one point in the movie, you'll wonder if they can be described as the heroines.
Watch Do Revenge 2022 Movie Official Trailer
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