Fresh, a new Hulu horror film, has a killer premise. Noa (Daisy Edgar-Jones) is sick of dating apps. After a string of bad dates, she meets Steve (Sebastian Stan) in a grocery store. He’s handsome, he’s funny, he’s confident. She gives him her number. After a whirlwind romance that leaves her head-over-heels in love, she plans a vacation with him. But there’s a catch: Steve is a human trafficker, kidnapping single women so he can sell human meat on the black market. Can her friend Mollie (Jonica T. Gibbs) find her in time?
There are shades of Get Out here, obviously. Writer Lauryn Kahn and director Mimi Cave have crafted a thriller that uses horror tropes to comment on primal fears women have about meeting men. Can you ever really know your partner? With atomized and disintegrated real-life social networks, how do you meet trustworthy partners? And, of course, the association with women and sex with ‘meat’ is a long-running misogynist trope that never quite goes away.
From that point-of-view, Fresh is interesting. The conflation of trafficking and assault with cannibalism is fascinating. It lets Cave play with some gruesome ideas, without needing to revel in the kind of sexualized violence of something like a rape-revenge film. That said, Fresh could have used a little more gruesomeness. The film discusses the horrifying things happening to these women, but it shies away from showing much by way of gore. For a horror movie about cannibalism, Fresh could stand a stronger stomach. Raw, this is not.
This goes into the film’s last act. If you’ve ever seen any thriller, you know what the film’s climax will be: Noa has to find the will to escape. She has to be cunning and thoughtful, use past information or skills, and fight her way to freedom. Intriguingly, rather than the typical conclusion, Noa’s weapons here are emotional and sexual. Rather than physically overcoming Steve, she has to seduce him. Thematically, it fits. If this is about modern dating, then Noa can be seen as trying to charm a dangerous date to get out safely.
Unfortunately, it takes Noa quite awhile to get there. Until then, she’s an incredibly passive protagonist. Indeed, I’d argue she isn’t the protagonist of the film at all, at least for most of the runtime. You might notice that my description of the film has been pretty Noa/Steve heavy so far. It would be easy to assume this is primarily a two-hander. It isn’t. Mollie, the film’s only major character of color, gets worried when she doesn’t hear from Noa after a few days. She starts looking into her mysterious new boyfriend.
Mollie takes most of the action, and Jonica Gibbs is more than charming enough in the role. But… the story doesn’t fit. It expands the social commentary a bit, as she explores the horrors of white suburbia, but, well, that’s not what the movie is about. And it isn’t interested in becoming about it, either. The film flirts with the imagery of white supremacy (thin blue line flags, for example) but refuses to explore the issues with any depth. What is it about Ann, Steve’s wife and possible first victim, and Noa, both white, that causes Steve to so thoroughly let down his guard? Why does Mollie trust Ann? What does Mollie go through after she’s captured?
Because of this, the middle of the film (after an admittedly thrilling title drop about 30 minutes in) drags. Noa does nothing; Mollie traces steps we’ve already followed. Fresh drags, here. It relies a lot on ‘fun’ shots of Sebastian Stan dancing around his house, cooking, sending meat out. And don’t get me wrong, Stan is fun to watch here. His physical performance delighted me. But it takes us away from Noa and Mollie too often, stranding them in a less interesting film.
Fresh is not by any means a bad film. It’s funny and charming, with a trio of very good performances at its core. It just feels like an incomplete one. There’s plenty of excellent filmmaking on display here, and Cave has a talent for balancing precarious and possibly conflicting tones deftly. But the film never wrestles with its heavier issues. Where it needs substance, it relies on style. In the end, if I’m disappointed, it is only because Fresh ultimately has less ambition than its opening act suggested.