Ask anyone. The dating scene can be murder, especially if the relationship consumes you.
In director Mimi Cave’s black-comic thriller Fresh, Noa (Daisy Edgar-Jones) is a smart, witty, modern girl just looking for a meaningful nibble in her stagnant dating pool when she meets Steve (Sebastian Stan), a super-attractive doctor at her local produce market.
After a quick roll in the sack, Noa is whisked off for a magical weekend trip with the too-good-to-be-true Steve, despite warnings from her lesbian BFF Mollie (Jonica T. Gibbs) that there are some definite red flags in this picture.
Next thing Noa knows is waking up chained to a floor. This is never a good sign.
Turns out Steve has a thriving black market business that needs new blood occasionally.
“What the fuck is happening?” Noa screams at Steve.
“I’ll tell you, but you’re going to freak out,” Steve replies.
Noa is in a very bad place, but she shows grit and determination by convincing her captor that she shares his unusual tastes for the very finest cuts of meat.
Yes, it’s every bit as gruesome as you think, and then some, but Cave also sneaks in stress-relieving laughs when we need them most, particularly after one of the director’s many rapid-fire meat-cutting-and-eating montages designed to make the viewer queasy with self-loathing.
“I don’t eat animals,” Steve tells Daisy in the early days of their courtship. Not ones with four legs, anyway.
Fresh doesn’t pull any punches in its portrayal of toxic masculinity, embodied by the charmingly evil Steve, a respectable man with a home and family who just can’t resist a tempting morsel.
Unfortunately, as any upset stomach commercial ably demonstrates, sometimes your food will fight back.
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