Fresh (2022)

Fresh is an 2022 American comedy thriller film directed by Mimi Cave, in her directorial debut, from a screenplay by Lauryn Kahn. It stars Sebastian Stan and Daisy Edgar-Jones. The film is a co-production between Legendary Pictures and Hyperobject Industries; Adam McKay produced the film alongside Kevin J. Messick and Maeve Cullinane.

Fresh premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 20, 2022 and was scheduled to be released on March 4, 2022 on Hulu by Searchlight Pictures.

Plot
Fresh follows Noa (Edgar-Jones), who meets the alluring Steve (Stan) at a grocery store and — given her frustration with dating apps — takes a chance and gives him her number. After their first date, Noa is smitten and accepts Steve's invitation to a romantic weekend getaway. Only to find that her new paramour has been hiding some unusual appetites.

Why It’s Fresh (No Pun Intended)

 * 1) The acting performance were incredibly talented and perfect for their perspective rolls. Especially Daisy Edgar-Jones, as she does an fantastic casting as Noa, especially given how familiar her character’s journey is to anyone who has ever attempted to find a partner through an app. She is also the one that started the movie cast.
 * 2) *Sebastian Stan as Steve is also really strong here albeit a bit sinister, this is definitely one of his more stronger performances his performance here heavily reminds us of John Goodman's performance from 10 Cloverfield Lane.
 * 3) Mimi Cave does a fantastic job especially with the fact this is her directional debut which it still find very hard to believe. She captures what makes a film disturbing, thrilling and understands how to balance comedy with disturbing moments. She is incredibly bold in her camera work and styling, clearly influenced by the '70s and '80s. Cave uses the camera in a number of ways, but perhaps the most interesting is when it captures the POV of a character. She uses her lens to take the audience along for the ride.
 * 4) The film itself is suspenseful and has a very haunting atmosphere to it that builds up to the finale which kicks things up into high gear with featuring the elements of comedy.
 * 5) It draws inspiration of films with similar themes like Hannibal and American Psycho.
 * 6) *Steve is also heavily inspiration of other antagonist as well, like Patrick.
 * 7) Amazing song choices for soundtrack that were nice fitting in each scenes.
 * 8) The mixture of being disturbing and the dark comedy compliment each other have extremely well done.

The Only Rotten Quality

 * 1) The story may not be engaging for some at times.

Reception
Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reports that 83% of 42 sampled critics gave the film positive reviews and that it has received an average rating of 7.20/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "As gripping as it is upsetting, Fresh makes a provocative meal out of the horror of modern dating." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 70 out of 100 based on 11 critics, indicating "generally favourable reviews".

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Trivia

 * It is first film from Legendary Pictures to be distributed by Disney, a la Searchlight Pictures, which was acquired by Disney as part of their acquisition of 21st Century Fox 3 years prior.