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“Be safe”. Every woman has been texted this from housemates, their group chat, and work colleagues before heading out on a first date. Caution is encouraged – we’ve all heard stories from women who have been at best, cat-fished and at worst, assaulted by men they’ve been seeing.
Dating can be dangerous. As someone who was single for the better part of the past ten years, I know all about sending my location to a friend “just in case”, not revealing too much about where I live, making sure we meet in a public place. It’s not necessarily the common experience, but like with most activities we engage in as women, from walking home alone to helping a stranger, we know to keep our guard up because danger is ever-present.
Fresh, a new thriller currently streaming on Disney+, explores the worst-case scenario we all have in our minds when we meet someone new. What if your new love turns out to be a psychopath killer – and you’re the next victim?
Daisy Edgar-Jones (of Normal People fame) stars as Noa, an unlucky-in-love woman in her twenties who goes on bad date after bad date. That is, until she meets Steve (Sebastian Stan), a reconstructive surgeon who is actually funny and, it seems, completely void of red flags.
Except, of course, he is actually the worst kind of red flag. When Noa agrees to a weekend away with him, it turns out to be a living nightmare. Steve drugs her, locks her in a basement, and she becomes the latest in a list of women he’s seduced then abducted to serve as meat in a black market cannibal ring. Yes, really.
From there it’s your standard escape thriller, and look – it’s silly and enjoyable to watch, if you’re looking for a Saturday night with pizza flick (and can handle gratuitous shots of people eating meat, which is implied to be human flesh).
It’s hard to create a comedy film that also deals with a very real and very sensitive topic, and honestly, I don’t think Fresh makes it work. The film is incredibly reminiscent of Promising Young Woman, which perfectly marries humour and social commentary around rape culture. However, unlike Promising Young Woman, Fresh feels like it’s making a joke of it all.
The reality is that women do fear for their safety constantly, especially when dating. A film can put humour around that, but it can never make fun of it. Even the most outrageous scenario, like a flesh-eating abductor, isn’t too far from reality. A quick Google search will bring up story after story of women around the world being abducted after meeting up with a new date.
Fresh starts off well. The opening scene in which Noa goes on a truly awful date with a guy who exhibits every toxic trait we’ve ever encountered is pitch-perfect, from the casual racism toward a waitress right through to his response to rejection (“enjoy trying to find a man, you stuck-up bitch”). The writing here is searingly accurate, one of the best depictions of modern dating I’ve seen of late.
The meet-cute of Noa and Steve is also played out well, reminiscent again of Promising Young Woman – finally, a great guy appears. Edgar-Jones and Stan don’t really have great chemistry, but they do portray the delicate awkwardness of early-stages dating in a way that keeps you hooked to their story.
Honestly, Fresh works right up until it’s end – that’s when it lost me. In Promising Young Woman, we’re left with both a satisfying revenge story and the horrifying realities of violence against women. Fresh instead turns to comedy in its last thirty minutes, making a farce out of Noa’s experience and in turn, the realities of date-based violence. The last scene sees Noa’s phone flash up with a text from ‘Chad’ that says “U Up”, as Noa and her fellow abductees recover from their escape. It’s a throwaway tongue in cheek ending that felt tone deaf.
Fresh had a great opportunity to explore the dangers of modern dating like Promising Young Woman explored our pervasive rape culture. It had the actors, the engaging plot, and – at least early on – the tone. Sadly, it missed the mark.
