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’Fresh’ review: Dir. Mimi Cave [Sundance 2022]

Beginning with a date so bad that it literally makes the viewer’s skin crawl, Fresh quickly establishes that lead character Noa (Daisy Edgar-Jones) doesn’t have much luck on the dating front. Her suitor for the night is Chad, a guy who starts the night by texting her to bring cash, before going on to insult her “unkempt” appearance, be rude to the staff, and generally be a complete narcissistic, misogynistic arshole. So when days later Noa encounters Steve (Sebastian Stan) in the fresh produce aisle of her local grocery store, he seems like a breath of fresh air. 

Courtesy of Sundance Institute.

For the first thirty minutes Fresh plays out as a conventional romantic comedy, leaning into the genre so heavily that many will start to question how the movie was selected as part of Sundance Film Festival’s Midnight programming (a strand for more horror focussed stories). At their initial meeting, Noa and Steve playfully converse about grapes before exchanging numbers. Days later we’re back in a date setting, but in stark contrast to the date with Chad, the evening with Steve is a dream come true. The pair instantly connect, happily talking through an electrically charged evening together and Noa is well on her way to feelings of more than lust. Once Fresh has tricked the viewer enough and has lulled them into a false sense of security, it drops the facade (and its opening credits) to reveal its true darker intentions and Steve’s real agenda. It’s a cleverly worked technique that dupes the viewer, placing them into a similar mindset to Noa herself. 

To comment on Steve’s secret here would spoil the hard work put in by Cave to hide it for the opening quarter of the film, but suffice it to say, it is tantalisingly taboo and firmly asserts Fresh as a worthy entry to the Midnight strand. There are early signs pointing to Steve not being quite right if you look for them. These moments are subtly done, and were the viewer to be unaware of the film’s programming at Sundance, could easily go unnoticed. Much of Noa and Steve’s early exchanges are fun and flirty, but every so often Steve gets suddenly serious. These moments are fleeting, but are enough to start to unsettle some and point to him not being the perfect partner that Noa believes him to be. His line of questioning, for example, “have you told anyone about us yet?”, may appear innocent enough in the context of a fledgling relationship, but can also be read as him probing for information on how many people’s radar’s he is on. Many more exchanges follow this pattern, the words he uses are a key signifier to the secret he is hiding. They are always cloaked in ambiguity, easily translating to both sinister and sincere, depending on how hard you look for red flags. 

The duality of Steve is masterfully executed by Sebastian Stan. Over the last decade, Stan has been most prominently known for his role of Bucky Barnes aka The Winter Soldier in the Marvel cinematic universe. After playing the role for so long in that world of superheroes and family entertainment, it’s great to see the actor sink his teeth into something meatier and more adult. Coupled with his turn as Tommy Lee in the forthcoming Pam & Tommy, Stan is having the time of his life at the moment, relishing in the opportunity to stand out from the massive shadow of the Marvel machine. As Steve, Stan stealthily shifts from romance novel dreamboat to nightmare tormentor, giving a tone-perfect performance that is both unhinged and charismatic. 

Noa herself is an excellent character to journey through this story with. Daisy Edgar-Jones makes her a protagonist that is easy to get along with, and one whose clever mind and resourcefulness thankfully means you won’t find yourself screaming at her too often. Noa is played as a strong woman and one who doesn’t easily crumble and break down; this isn’t the tearful and wailing victim that has become convention. Instead, Noa formulates a plan to save her bacon, one that relies on playing the long game, which in itself gets the viewer wondering just how innocent she might be. 

Fresh presents a cautionary tale around the perils of modern dating, though forgoes the overdone risks of meeting someone online. Here, after a slew of pointless dates with men met online, Noa meets Steve in person and in doing so believes that she has circumnavigated the pitfalls. The fact that Steve proves to be much more dangerous highlights that, sadly, women can’t take anything for granted and have to scrutinise every aspect of new people in their lives in a bid to keep themselves safe. Unlike many ‘victims’ in these stories Noa appears to do all the right things. She meets the guy in the flesh, the date itself takes place in a busy bar, and she keeps her best friend Mollie (Jojo T. Gibbs) informed of her whereabouts and plans. These are all things that modern women are told to do before agreeing to meet a potential love-match, and yet as displayed here, even all this isn’t enough to save some. 

Worth the admission purely to see Stan cut loose from his more famous brooding screen persona, Fresh transitions from simmering romance to boiling carnage and in doing so becomes a deliciously moreish movie morsel. A perfect metaphor for the hazardous world of modern dating, much like it’s antagonist, Fresh presents a beautifully polished exterior, one which masks a dark inside. 

Fresh

Kat Hughes

Fresh

Summary

It’s a tale as old as time: girl meets boy, boy then reveals himself to be not exactly what he initially seemed to be, and horror ensues. Whilst not the most original of through-lines, director Mimi Cave and writer Lauryn Jahn infuse Fresh with enough new and interesting components to make their film feel, well… fresh.

4

Fresh was reviewed at Sundance 2022.

Kat Hughes is a UK born film critic and interviewer who has a passion for horror films. An editor for THN, Kat is also a Rotten Tomatoes Approved Critic. She has bylines with Ghouls Magazine, Arrow Video, Film Stories, Certified Forgotten and FILMHOUNDS and has had essays published in home entertainment releases by Vinegar Syndrome and Second Sight. When not writing about horror, Kat hosts micro podcast Movies with Mummy along with her five-year-old daughter.

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