Sundance Review: REVENGE is a Brutal Blood Bath of Survival with a Strong Female Lead

Strong female characters having to face off against attackers is nothing new to movies. There are plenty of "revenge" films out there including "I Spit on Your Grave" and "Last House on the Left" being semi examples. But Revenge (2017) directed by Coralie Fargeat, manages to emphasize some of the real dangers that threaten women nowadays. The villains of this show aren't savage criminal maniacs, but weak and realistic men. 

The movie was essentially about a woman who goes on vacation with an attractive rich man who is married, and is attacked by the man and his friends and has to fight back. I knew this a bit when I was going into it, but what I didn't expect was that it would be so casual at the beginning. I thought you'd have the girl be with the guy and then for no reason, the other two guys would make an unwanted move on her, but it did something brilliant. It had the night before where the girl met the rich man's friends and partied with them. One of them thought that she loved him because she was kind to him and was having a good time. She flirted a bit but nothing serious. Classic "nice guy" mentality. The next day he acted creepy and nice and didn't understand that she wasn't interested. Then rape. Then the good looking guy comes back and she's freaked out, and they try to buy her off, but she runs away and they push her off a cliff.

Ok, I know I'm going into detail about this movie more than usual, and I will mention one thing that was kinda unbelievable. She got pushed off a cliff in the desert and survived. It was a pretty high cliff, and she didn't land in water, she landed on like a tree stump that impaled her. In Mortal Kombat terms, that is most definitely a fatality. Even knowing this was a revenge film, when I saw her fall, get impaled, and have her back snap like that as her body was lifeless over it, I thought well, she's dead. I don't know what happens next, but she's definitely dead. But she wasn't. In fact, she was able to pull herself together and get "revenge" on them.

That point aside, this movie had many things going well for it. The pace was great, as it consistently felt like things were going forward. Special effects were equally impressive. There are plenty cringe-worthy moments that some members of our audience actually walked away from, of people looking and feeling at their open wounds, but in my opinion, it never felt overly gory. It was perfectly gory. The makeup for the wounds were really well done and very realistic. Whoever was put in charge did a fantastic job. You also never felt like the main girl was truly safe. She was seriously injured and vulnerable, and although you know she's got to get the titular revenge, she still manages to take some serious hits from each of her rivals up until the end. I felt worried about her safety constantly, even though she technically was the hunter in most of the situations. 

The men she was hunting and that were hunting here, were not necessarily stupid either. They would try to be safe, pulling tricks on her. It wasn't like Tom and Jerry where she just consistently outsmarts the dumb bad guys. It's a complicated game. Each one was perverse and villainous in their own way too. They weren't the same bad guy. One was more of an aggressive asshole who had no respect for women, while another was totally apathetic towards other people and just didn't care, while the third was the "nice guy" mentality, where he thinks he's a good guy who would treat the girl great, but when the girl doesn't give him what he wants, he is definitely an asshole. Each of them are different and have tricks up their sleeve.

The girl is by far the best of the film. Matilda Lutz manages to be a badass and vulnerable at the same time. At one specific point of the movie, I just thought, huh, she would make a great Lara Croft. She starts out being confident and sexual, and then you see her go through hell and be vulnerable, and then you see her just be a freaking terminator. She runs the gamut of emotions through this film and each seems realistic. I especially loved the attention to detail regarding her character. The main character had a pink star earring that she wore through the whole movie, and then a picture of what looks like a phoenix burned into her stomach. These all gave her a distinct character that would make you be able to point her out in a lineup. She was not your average heroine. She was better.

This movie has English and French with English subtitles, but it's never that distracting. She's English, so she speaks to them in English and they speak to her in English, but to each other, they all speak French. In fact, some of the movie is completely dialogue-free, and it makes it even more impressive. When people are talking they are safe, but when it's silent, you get an edgy feeling that someone could be killed. Such a good tone overall, with good acting from everyone involved.

If you don't mind some blood and gore, then check out this film. Such a powerful and bloody film. It has such good acting and action and will leave you having your mind blown. 

Uploaded by Yohann COMTE on 2018-01-08.

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