Heathers meets Strangers on a Train in Netflix's new teen flick Do Revenge. As evidenced by the film's first trailer, Stranger Things' Maya Hawke and Riverdale's Camila Mendes star in the movie that invokes Alfred Hitchcock's great murder swap movie. The film also nods to classic teen girl films like Heathers (they play croquet in this movie!), Jawbreaker, Mean Girls, and even Clueless with the inclusion of an Emma-esque makeover.
The official synopsis for Do Revenge reads:
"Drea (Camila Mendes) is at the peak of her high school powers as the Alpha it-girl on campus when her entire life goes up in flames after her sex tape gets leaked to the whole school, seemingly by her boyfriend and king of the school, Max (Austin Abrams). Eleanor (Maya Hawke) is an awkward new transfer student who is angered to find out that she now has to go to school with her old bully, Carissa (Ava Capri) who started a nasty rumor about her in summer camp when they were 13. After a clandestine run-in at tennis camp, Drea and Eleanor form an unlikely and secret friendship to get revenge on each other's tormentors."
According to the trailer, the unlikely pair, Drea and Carissa, share stories of being wronged and then agree to get revenge on their tormenters. But rather than get back at them directly, they swap doing each other's revenge a la the plot of Strangers on a Train (with its LGBTQ+ pedigree as the novel was written by a queer woman, Patricia Highsmith, who wrote The Price of Salt, and it is one of Hitchcock's queerest films). The trailer doesn't give away much of the queer storyline except that Carissa (possibly out of internalized homophobia) started a rumor that Eleanor had pinned her down and tried to kiss her years ago, thus painting Eleanor as a predator. And blink and you miss it in the trailer, but another girl pulls Eleanor in for a kiss at one point. There are also call-outs to modern language around gender identity and inclusivity.
Do Revenge is the second feature from Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, who wrote the screenplay with Celeste Ballard. Robinson and Ballard were writers on the short-lived but beloved revenge series Sweet/Vicious, and Robinson co-wrote Unpregnant.
Watch the trailer below. Do Revenge drops on Netflix September 16.
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