Add one more thing to your to-do list this weekend: ‘Do Revenge’
October 15, 2022
A sex tape. A shroom trip. And a highly unrealistic, but extremely fashionable wardrobe. What more could a campy teen comedy ask for?
Netflix’s new movie, “Do Revenge,” is a hilarious social commentary on Generation-Z that tackles influencer culture and how social media has completely put us out of touch with reality.
Starring “Stranger Things” actor Maya Hawke and “Riverdale” actor Camila Mendes, “Do Revenge” focuses on the unlikely friendship between Nora, the new girl at Rosehill Country Day High, and Drea, former popular girl. Seeking revenge on the people who have wronged them, Drea and Nora work together to get back at each other’s bullies in order to avoid getting caught and potentially throwing away their academic careers.
The film, albeit over the top, was one of the most realistic depictions of Gen-Z in current media. Every character in the movie is more worried about being “cancelled” than they are about doing the right thing. They focus more on social hierarchy at school and uplifting the men pretending to be feminists rather than helping actual victims of sexual harassment.
Neither Drea or Nora are likable characters. They are easily some of the worst people you will ever watch in a movie. Revenge-obsessed and too self-involved to realize who they hurt, each girl has their own flaws that are brought to light by the conclusion. But, their un-likability is probably what also makes them so enjoyable to watch.
Both girls are just overall messy. Nora is a lesbian who suffered the traumatizing experience of being accused of kissing another girl at camp without her consent and, ever since then, she’s been a quiet outcast who has never stopped thinking about what that rumor cost her.
Drea, on the contrary, has suffered her pain more recently, the most intimate parts of her exposed by someone she thought she could trust. The insane, and, unfortunately, more realistic part of it is that everyone sided with her boyfriend, Max, played by Austin Abrams, who knows exactly how to work a crowd.
Rather than working through their trauma in a more normal and reasonable way, the girls essentially exploit and harm everyone else in the process of trying to get back at their abusers; a totally avoidable situation if they had just gone to therapy.
Hawke shared with The Wrap that she thinks characters like her own are what truly represent a realistic high school experience. While I don’t recall ever wanting to drug my entire senior class just to send someone else to jail for growing said drugs, I can see how the film accurately depicts teen life, in a much more dramatic and expensive way.
Director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson and writer Celeste Ballard do an excellent job at capturing Gen-Z language — an extremely difficult feat for people currently in the film industry.
In an interview with BuzzFeed, Robinson noted the difficulties of creating a dark comedy like “Do Revenge.” Trying to figure out when to be humorous and when to be serious is hard especially when creating something that’s inherently satiric in nature. Still, Robinson and Ballard were able to make something that beautifully captured the intricacies of female emotions.
However, the film did have its flaws when it came to comedy, more specifically with Drea’s ex-boyfriend, Max. Abrams is a wonderful actor in his other works like Euphoria, but in “Do Revenge,” he’s unable to capture the true essence of an annoyingly “woke” man who abuses women.
His whole character, until the very end, is a joke in itself. A narcissistic, spoiled brat who makes every situation about himself and denies leaking Drea’s video until his last scene. Max truly is the villain in every woman’s story. When he finally admits that he did it, the audience gets a true taste of how well Abrams can act, something that the rest of the movie lacked.
Characters like Max are also the reason viewers can appreciate Nora and Drea, even with their highly sociopathic flaws. Hawke and Mendes have undeniable chemistry which makes them great friends, but their lack of a romantic relationship is also what makes it one of the movie’s biggest downfalls.
What truly makes the film worth the watch is the twist at the climax that really emphasizes the idea that all of these characters are flawed, seemingly beyond repair. Drea and Nora are not as good for each other as the audience might think, toxicity taking the wheel as one of them hits the other with her car.
However, like all other films, forgiveness plays a key role in healing one’s inner self — a sentiment that genuinely baffles the viewer given everything these girls have done to each other and those around them, but I guess the power of friendship is stronger than hitting someone with your car.