After seeing ‘Fresh’ you might never think of a certain Richard Marx song the same way again.
When Mimi Cave’s Fresh premiered at Sundance in January, the plot was purposefully vague. It was basically presented as a movie about dating. I honestly thought it was a romantic comedy. Fresh is not a romantic comedy. It’s pretty much the opposite of a romantic comedy. To the point if you happen to be a squeamish person, you might want to know Fresh will most likely make you squeamish. The first 30 minutes or so start out like a romantic comedy. Noa (Daisy Edgar-Jones) is going on dates and it seems like she can’t meet anyone who isn’t obnoxious. At the grocery store she has a chance encounter with Steve ( Sebatian Stan) and, hey, here we go – we all hope it works out for these two. But then after about 30 minutes, Fresh takes a… turn. I won’t spoil what the actual plot is, but it’s safe to say things don’t really work out for Noah and Sam, at least the way we were first thinking Ahead, both Stan and Edgar-Jones take us through this twisted film that, one moment, can depict pure horror, then the next has Stan and Edgar-Jones doing a highly choreographed dance to a Richard Marx song. (Also, if you see Fresh, there’s a good chance you won’t ever hear Animotion’s Obsession the same way. There’s a scene where I’m horrified by the stuff going on, but then you two start dancing to, and I’m going from memory, was it Richard Marx? “Endless Summer Nights”? Sebastian Stan: Of course! And then I start laughing. Am I a bad person? Sebastian Stan: I don’t think so. Okay. Sebastian Stan: I don’t know. I felt guilty. Sebastian Stan: You should ask, first of all, your girlfriend… That’s a good idea. Sebastian Stan: But I think one of the things that we wanted, I suppose from the audience, is for everyone to sort of have their own experience with that moment, or whatever that third act is. I think a good movie often manages to leave one, sort of, with unexpected thoughts or feelings or reactions – rather than always just kind of giving you on a platter, telling you how to feel or how to think. And obviously, this movie has a lot of strong themes and ideas and questions. But I think as it goes, credit to Mimi, our director, I think, and us as well in the sense that we were really, really consciously as a collective, trying to find a way to artistically explain how complicated and complex that moment was between these two. And also keeping the audience a little bit off-kilter in the sense that if you are with Noa in that moment, that you may not necessarily know what she’s thinking or feeling. Off-kilter is a good way to put it because I think what made me feel off-kilter watching that is both of you just look like you’re going for it.
