Film Review: Fresh ideal for those who like to have a racing pulse while watching a movie

Film review. Photo / Getty Images

Fresh (R, 116 mins) streaming now on Disney+
Directed by Mimi Cave

Fresh comes with a warning from Disney to expect strong and disturbingly violent content, bloody images and the grotesque, but for those who aren't put off by that and who like to have a racing pulse while watching a movie, who enjoy some edge of the seat moments and can overlook a couple of completely absurd scenes, this one is definitely for you.

There are a few familiar elements to the movie: dating app, tracking app, date rape drug, Dracula-like seduce and snatch, then capture, terror and horror.

It asks questions that have been asked before: how does a girl feel when none of the dating app matches has been satisfactory, what would she do without her reliable girlfriend, what would she do in a captive situation, particularly if she was unfit and hadn't had boxing lessons?

But none of that makes the film predictable, far from it.

Charming and cute Steve (Sebastian Stan) comes on to lovely, slightly naïve but by no means stupid Noa (Daisy Edgar-Jones) in the supermarket vegetable aisle, somewhere in Seattle, without having used a dating app, which raises alarm bells for Noa's best friend Molly (Jojo T. Gibbs).

Despite Molly's misgivings, the new relationship is wholesome and reasonably uncomplicated, at first. It's like a Disney romance, in writer Lauryn Kahn's words. There's plenty of healthy chemistry, lots of laughter and fun too, but it comes with an odd, intriguing undercurrent. Is Steve interested in something other than sex, perhaps?

Steve's surprise getaway weekend for two unsurprisingly turns out to be a trap with no wifi and from then on, romance turns into something else entirely or nearly does. Romance and delicious food go hand in hand, don't they?

Has Noa got Stockholm syndrome and fallen in love with her captor? If not, why does she graciously thank Steve for the pretty pink dress and accept his invitation to a weird kind of dinner date, upstairs in his super-luxurious remote fortress of a house with its prison beneath, hewn out of rock?

Fresh invites a comparison with another horrific dating movie, Emerald Fennell's Promising Young Woman (2020), similarly scary/funny, also with a powerful message about trust. But Mimi Cave, like the best directors although directing a feature for the first time, makes herself invisible in Fresh, and manages, despite all the gore, to communicate her film's message subtly.

Speaking at Sundance in January, Mimi Cave said: "I wanted to somehow make a movie that was saying something … while not shoving it down your throat in a preachy way. I wanted the audience to be genuinely scared, but I also wanted them to laugh, and to feel a plethora of emotions."

Alex Somers clarifies Mimi Cave's vision with his gentle musical score, soothing even while the ugliest things imaginable are happening on screen.

It's a big achievement, twisted and revolting, but also moving and completely absorbing. Highly recommended

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