Strange Darling Review

Several believe the film Strange Darling to be an art or artsy film, using untrustworthy narrators, music, and color theory to foreshadow plot points. Others may find the opening sequence overbearing and heavy-handed, moving from black and white flash forward to color present, reminding the viewer they will see a film shot on 33mm stock in six chapters.

However, the non-sequential chapters, necessary to build empathy for the Lady, make it clear there is no past or present; it is simply a view of events that happen to be related. The main characters, the Lady and the Demon, are not empathetic characters, but the order of the chapters successfully builds empathy for each in short order. With little effort and wholly unaware until it was too late, I was fully engrossed in the story, only to be jarred back by the chapter breaks.

As a critic and judge of film festivals, I came into Strange Darling with my own set of demons, which I callously use to judge independent films. I was gleefully surprised that my initial judgment, based on the first 10 minutes, was wrong. I often describe art as the suspension of time and space: When looking at a painting, if you can get lost in the image, unaware of your surroundings and how long you’ve been there, you’ve been looking at art. The opening sequence of text, credits, music, and colors (or lack thereof) dare you not to fall into the story. A challenge I thought was easily done. Well, I was wrong, and I failed.

Strange Darling is well-paced, superbly acted, and well-written and edited. Thinking “it would only work better if the chapters were aligned sequentially” was a false assumption I was cured of. You need to empathize with the Lady; that wouldn’t happen if it were organized any other way. Where nonlinear editing has been a thing forever, nonlinear storytelling is something rare, even more so when it comes to doing it well. You look forward to seeing the chapters that have yet to come is Strange Darling, not so much in films like  Pulp Fiction.

Strange Darling is a rare limited-release film, one that was worth wide distribution, even if it challenged viewers to toss aside preconceived notions of what a film looks like. Get out of your comfort zone and rent or buy this film now.