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Fresh Movie Review

Fresh is a 2022 black comedy thriller film directed by Mimi Cave and starring Daisy Edgar-Jones and Sebastian Stan. It’s an extremely entertaining flick.

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“Stupid bitch left the whole sea for a man“

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The movie explores modern dating and how it can go wrong in the worst possible scenario. A young woman starts dating a guy who turns out to be a dangerous creep who abducts women and cuts them, so that he can sell the meat to the rich cannibalistic clientele. Yes, this is the premise of the movie, and needless to say it is hilariously ridiculous, but it works because the execution is just so strong.

Sebastian Stan was born to play these crazy, over-the-top characters. He should really stick to them going forward as he is effortlessly great here just as he was in ‘Pam and Tommy’. His Steve is pleasantly unhinged and Stan obviously had a lot of fun playing him. Others are also memorable with Daisy Edgar-Jones delivering a terrific performance, showcasing a lot of promising talent in the process.

Jonica T. Gibbs as Mollie is wonderful. This is a black lesbian friend of the protagonist and that sounds like tokenism, but thankfully her character and the performer was so likable and cool that she transcended the possibly frustrating diversity hire successfully. The movie is at its best when it’s focusing on her search for her best friend. Her resourcefulness and the protagonist’s intelligence are the reasons why they got out of their conundrum.

Fresh is silly and at times it’s downright ludicrous. It doesn’t really try to include any real psychological insight, it’s all done for shock value, but it works due to immensely strong execution not just in the acting department, but also in solid directing, superb pacing and excellent action sequences in the third act. Everything that happened in the final twenty minutes wasn’t just wildly entertaining, but also satisfactory in its conclusion.

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Fresh is also very funny, which came as a surprise to me. Rare are horror/thriller movies that are genuinely funny and this one most surely is. It made me laugh more than a couple of times as it’s both cheekily self-aware and very well written in its witty dialogue. The cinematography and the score are nothing to write home about, but the various plot scenarios all worked and the movie’s inclusion of romantic elements and manipulations made it tonally diverse and unique. Some of the sequences with the meat were highly provocative, though expectedly grotesque in their imagery and implications.