I totally agree though. F**k Ariel. Literally the most overrated Disney princess out there.
Mimi Cave deserves her share of directorial hirings in the future considering she shoots her stylistic debut Fresh quite creatively, especially under the support of the so far great cinematographer Pawel Pogorzelski, and Daisy Edgar-Jones and Sebastian Stan are just marvelous in this despite how incomplete their characters appear (among many other things) because of a doomed script. Those first thirty minutes of the movie also showed such promise thematically — a sneaky photo-snap to keep of the person who doesn’t have their life’s story uploaded on social media, wi-fi dependency has become a productive safety net for us so when it’s gone our vulnerability just maxes out to unbearable degrees, i.e it looks as if we’re heading into a socially aware piece! Then after that opening (and literally when the title first shows up) the movie garnishes this lethargically avant-garde release of the remaining plot, and yet the most it accomplishes from this is letting you, within this upsettingly new + taboo + abusive environment, linger on its one “would you rather” / “you gotta do what you gotta do” question, given how hollow the rest of its content is if you can forget about the side-plot purposely disguised as the Get Out (2017) side-plot that’s happening in the background.
Nonetheless, this moral question is admittedly sometimes beefy enough to make your experience with the story feel some existential pressure, but it could’ve been pushed a trillion times harder for the better in a numerous amount of occasions especially for what interesting concepts it does bring up. What’s even more disheartening though, is what decides to proceed this part’s sunbathing of black market culture. It suddenly flips its heels with what almost became just the pinnacle of what you’d expect from a generic horror climax cloaked though by a few “wink-heavy” subversions. The “…are the f**king problem” line went off at least? #dontsubmittoyourenvironment
So sure, it’s nice (and relieving) to keep seeing big studios make intentionally stomach-triggering s**t like Fresh still, but predominantly spending your time hammering in that kind of “edge” can only get you so far, and it becomes even more of a tease too when there are clear ambitions here to look at that “edge” and think higher of it than your usual mediocre flick for which it, however, ultimately came to be.
Verdict: C
“Fresh” is now available to stream on Hulu.
Burning the Celluloid 
Published by