Eat or Be Eaten: Fresh Takes on the Horrors of Dating
Fresh has all the ingredients to be the perfect modern thriller. It’s a black comedy about the horrors of modern dating starring Daisy Edgar-Jones (who will soon feature in Where the Crawdads Sing and Under the Banner of Heaven) and Sebastian Stan (fresh off his role in Pam and Tommy). There are plenty of mundane horrors to be had in the dating world, but Fresh ups the stakes and throws a cannibal into the dating pool.
I was so excited to see Daisy Edgar-Jones at the helm as Noa. She has such a knack for playing stoic and somewhat mysterious characters, like Marianne in the Hulu drama Normal People. Marianne is restrained and uncommunicative, so it was such a welcome change to see Edgar-Jones play Noa with such assuredness and cunning. Sebastian Stan is creepily charming as Steve, a seemingly nice guy who asks Noa out at a grocery store. It’s a meet-cute that trumps the artificiality of dating apps and it’s enough for Noa to agree to exchange numbers. She even says to her friend Mollie (Jonica T. Gibbs), “I didn’t think people met people in real life anymore,” a sentiment shared by most anyone who’s tried their hand at entering the dating world. Noa begins seeing Steve, and soon Steve whisks Noa away for a romantic weekend… to his home in the middle of nowhere. My head was screaming stranger danger!, but my heart was rooting for any choice that would allow Edgar-Jones and Stan more screen time. Their chemistry is undoubtedly Fresh’s strongest asset, and their onscreen magnetism continues long after Steven reveals his true carnivorous intentions.
Gibbs is also delightful as Noa’s extroverted counterpart. Through Noa’s conversations with Mollie, we learn a lot about Noa’s disillusionment with dating. Also, Mollie stands as a strong and comedic character on her own when she embarks on a quest to find and rescue Noa. Mollie’s search for Noa is the most realistic approach I’ve seen in horror: she discerns changes in Noa’s texting patterns, tracks Noa with location services, and Facebook stalks Steve. She’s Liam Neeson in Taken, except her only special skill is online stalking.
What sets Fresh apart from other modern thrillers is its devotion to aesthetics. In the intro sequence, Noa’s on a date with a moderately misogynistic narcissist aptly named Chad. We get repeated close-ups of the surrounding men licking their lips and chewing meat, and birds roasting on spits, disgusting visuals in the context of the cannibalism to come. In her directorial debut, Mimi Cave knows how to catch your eye. The attention to detail makes for a deliciously tense atmosphere that vilifies the male dating pool before we even meet Steve.
This devotion to aesthetics continues at Steve’s isolated home. The movie’s goriest scenes are backed by upbeat 80s pop music and red lighting. The juxtapositions are consistently unsettling. Small touches make the movie feel effortlessly classic, like the modest pink dress Steve has Noa wear to dinner (you can guess what’s on the menu). In one of the most memorable scenes, Noa and Steve dance together after dining (a callback to an earlier date) and their synchronized movements are so visually pleasing it’s eerie.
Fresh does occasionally stumble in fulfilling its role as a horror. It suffers from odd pacing and incomplete storylines. Big moments didn’t feel as dramatic as they should have, and even Steve’s cannibalistic reveal was abrupt. Fresh reminds me of The Invisible Man for its focus on relationship power dynamics, and I wish Fresh would lean into moments of tension like the 2020 thriller does. We finally hit the opening credits a half hour into the movie when Noa’s already at Steve’s house, which is a striking stylistic choice to signal that the true horror’s only just begun. But I almost felt that Noa’s initial interactions with Steve were packed with more suspense than anything that transpires at his home.
Fresh opts for straightforward storytelling and rarely had me on the edge of my seat. There’s plenty of blood and gore but hardly any stakes for our main character. Noa’s surgery, a massive plot point and the primary driver of fear in the story, had virtually no consequences. She’s sitting, walking, and even up and dancing a couple days later. Was there no budget for a pair of compression shorts?
I also wanted more from Steve’s other victims. Noa begins talking to Penny through the wall of Steve’s basement. Their dialogue was stilted, unrealistic, and void of much emotion or information relevant to the plot. Their relationship fell totally flat for me, which was a surprise given how much I enjoyed the rapport between Noa and Mollie. Though Mollie’s search for Noa does create some odd tonal shifts. She’ll crack jokes in one scene, and in the next Steve cuts up a woman’s body.
Apart from these few missteps, Fresh is… fresh. It approaches modern dating with much needed cynicism, toying with the idea that women are just delicious pieces of meat for male consumption. While the metaphor is straightforward, it never feels too force-fed in this smart, stylish thriller. But be warned: from Noa’s first date to her very last “U up?” text, if you’re a woman who dates men the scariest part of Fresh is how relatable you’ll find it.
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