Did you have someone in high school who really screwed you over? Somebody you wished you could enact sweet vengeance upon, who you’d give anything to see burned to the ground as penance for the way they wronged you? Well, Netflix’s “Do Revenge” is about what happens when one acts on that desire, taking the concept to its logical extreme.
Loosely inspired by (but not directly based upon) Alfred Hitchcock’s “Strangers on a Train,” “Do Revenge” is the story of dethroned queen bee Drea Torres (Camila Mendes) and queer transfer student Eleanor Levetan (Maya Hawke), who form an unlikely friendship and agree to go after each other’s tormentors. Drea wants revenge against her ex-boyfriend Max (Austin Abrams) for leaking an explicit video she sent him, toppling her hard-earned social status and jeopardizing her Yale scholarship in the process. Likewise, Eleanor has her sights set on her classmate Carissa (Ava Capri), who outed her and falsely accused her of an unwanted advance in the past.
The two lead performances are a massive part of what makes this movie work. Mendes is delightfully fierce as Drea, whose perfect-girl composure slowly unravels as she becomes increasingly consumed by her thirst for vengeance. Meanwhile, Hawke essentially plays the exact same character as she does in Stranger Things (i.e., a motormouthed, endearingly awkward nonconformist), but it works just as well here as it does in that show.
Abrams is also great as the impossibly smarmy Max, who embodies nearly every toxic male trait of entitlement you could imagine. Sophie Turner even shows up as Drea’s summer camp rival, delivering some of the movie’s biggest laughs in her scant screen time.
Plenty of high school comedies romanticize underdogs getting back at their peers. However, I was pleasantly surprised to see “Do Revenge” taking a different approach to this trope. Instead of painting Drea and Eleanor’s revenge quest in triumphant light, the film depicts it as the unfulfilling, self-defeating cycle it truly is. The two end up learning this lesson the hard way. To paraphrase a certain Jedi master, by the end of the film, they become the very things they’d sworn to destroy.
Despite this film being primarily branded as a comedy, the humor is probably what I enjoyed the least. But then again, it might just be that I’ve seen so many high school flicks to the point where this style of humor doesn’t really do it for me anymore. There isn’t anything here that made me cringe, but Sophie Turner aside, I can’t say any jokes got more than a mild chuckle out of me.
The thing that truly makes “Do Revenge” shine are the chemistry between the two leads, the solid commentary on how status-obsessed high school drives us all to be and the tightly written plot that takes a very unexpected turn going into the third act. It’s during that final stretch of the movie where its Hitchcockian influence truly begins to shine through and when it becomes more than just another teen comedy. On top of all that, the film also just looks really nice from both a set and costume design standpoint. This hyper exaggerated interpretation of a Florida prep school is littered with soft pastel colors and vibrant outfits; it all works in service of the movie’s exaggerated tone.
I didn’t have the highest expectations going into “Do Revenge,” but I’m happy to report this film thoroughly exceeded them. The next time you find yourself having a lazy night in, this is the perfect movie to switch on.
Edited by Lucy Valeski | lvaleski@themaneater.com
Copy edited by Sam Acevedo and Julia Williams | jwilliams@themaneater.com
