Frustrated by scrolling dating apps only to end up on lame, tedious dates, Noa takes a chance by giving her number to the awkwardly charming Steve after a produce-section meet-cute at the grocery store.
- Released: 2022-03-03
- Runtime: 114 minutes
- Genre: Horror, Romance, Thrillers
- Stars: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Sebastian Stan, Jonica T. Gibbs, Andrea Bang, Dayo Okeniyi, Charlotte Le Bon, Brett Dier, Alina Maris, William Belleau, Lachlan Quarmby, Sunghee Lapell, Arghavan Jenati, Anthony Ingram, Frances Leigh, Lance Birley, Joe Costa, Larry Hoe, Scott McGrath, Robert Corness, Arghavan Jenati
- Director: Mimi Cave
Comments
- darrenbjones - 7 January 2023
Not vaguely what I was expecting, but clever and thrilling.
I knew the twist, Steve (Sebastian Stan) had a fetish for raw human flesh, and somehow after seeing the trailer, I was expecting a dark romantic comedy where he and Noa (Daisy Edgar Jones) tried to reconcile this need within their relationship.
Instead what I got was a dark thriller about a man who picks lonely single women with few friends and family, kidnaps them and slowly carves them up for a niche "1% of the 1%" who will pay a fortune for this forbidden culinary delicacy.
Fresh is a fantastic thriller, that also acts as an insight into the fear women have of dating. There are no sympathetic male characters in this. The men in this are either online weirdos, giant assholes, cowards who let women down, or complete psychopaths.
Sebastian Stan is excellent as Steve, a funny, attractive, surgeon who is romantic, passionate and the complete hallmark package, and also a psychotic, cannibal killer, who is also already married with children.
Daisy Edgar Jones is likewise brilliant as Noa. She's a good woman just looking for love. She's not stupid, she's not a secret martial artist or detective, she's a regular person who is drawn into danger in a way that is taught to us as being romantic, through its frequent use as plot line for many romcom movies.
The film plays on that fear of risking it all for love, opening up to someone, and risking having your heart torn out when a person you love turns out to be someone else. In Fresh however, it is in a very literal and dark way, and ultimately it's your friends who will get you through this.
Dark, clever, disturbing, funny in places, and really well acted. It's a great movie, just not one for a first date. - neil-476 - 14 December 2022
Good, but not to everyone's taste
After bad dating experiences, Noa meets a surprisingly likeable random chap at the supermarket. Things blossom quickly, and they are soon off for a weekend away. And then things take an unexpected turn.
The unexpected turn is at the heart of the plot, and deserves not to be spoilered. But that doesn't matter, because there is plenty to enjoy aside from the plot development which turns this from romantic drama into... something else. There is a subtext, for instance, which pokes wry fun at a particular male view of women, particularly in the internet age.
And there is a fantastic central performance from Daisy Edgar-Jones as Noa, completely believable in her reactions to an unusual experience. The rest of the cast as very good, too.
