by Karen Kohler
This past Friday, September 16th, Netflix original movie “Do Revenge” came out and to put it plainly, it has it all. The cast is packed full of teen drama stars with leads Maya Hawke, known for her role as Robin on “Stranger Things” and Camila Mendes, known for her role as Veronica on “Riverdale.” Other highlights of this movie include the beautiful pastel color scheme, the wardrobe, the soundtrack, the exploration of female friendships, and the callbacks to many popular teen movie tropes.
This movie is best categorized as a dark comedy and a teen drama. The story follows two seventeen-year old girls, Eleanor(Maya Hawke) and Drea(Camila Mendes) whose moral compasses could be considered just a bit skewed but you find yourself rooting for them. Drea wants to get revenge on her ex-boyfriend who has the rest of the school wrapped around his finger, but she wants to expose him for who he really is. Eleanor, on the other hand, wants to get revenge on her first girlfriend who outed and started a nasty rumor about her. The two become unlikely friends and Drea has the idea that they should team up and do each other’s revenge, so that their actions remain anonymous.
One thing this movie does very well is reuse themes and make references to previous iconic movies, but still keeps it fresh. There’s a climactic scene where Drea is standing smugly in the hallway, watching chaos ensue as everyone argues and panics and papers go flying everywhere. This of course is a callback to “Mean Girls” where Regina George stands in the same fashion. This film also features Sarah Michelle Geller of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Cruel Intentions” and she quotes from “Cruel Intentions” which many viewers were excited about. There is also, of course, a dramatic makeover scene, a clear necessity of any teen movie. As far as the soundtrack, the song “Kids of America” is featured, another callback, but is covered by up and coming Indie Pop artist Maude Latour.
This film was also female directed, which is refreshing for a movie where the focus is female friendship. Though the friendship in this movie is by no means pure, it is multi-faceted with a lot of jealousy and obsession, but also a deep sense of care and connectedness that contrasts the sometimes one-dimensional female friendships often depicted in the media. This past weekend the movie was at number one in movies on Netflix and it currently rests at number two so if you want to see what all the buzz is about, go join the fun and watch it!
