Teen comedies enjoyed especially high popularity during the 1990s in Hollywood, with the particularity that some of those remembered are reimaginings of existing works. For example, ‘Clueless (Out of wave)’ drank from ‘Emma’, ‘Cruel intentions’ It is based on ‘Dangerous Liaisons’ and 10 reasons to hate you It was inspired by ‘The Taming of the Shrew’.
Now it is a Netflix production that follows that path, because this Friday, September 16, it arrives on the platform ‘revenge already’a film whose premise has obvious points in common with ‘Strangers on a Train’, the novel by Patricia Highsmith immortalized on the big screen by Alfred Hitchcock in 1951. Of course, all this with a very different approach that uses with spark different commonplaces of adolescent Hollywood cinema. Too bad it loses strength in its final stretch.
A stimulating proposal
All in all, one of the key aspects of ‘Revancha ya’ is that it is not a typical teenage movie, something that is emphasized from the outset to lay the foundations for a family universe, yes, but that does not have problems in presenting its two protagonists as characters who do not want to be liked by the public from the first moment.
Here it matters more that they have enough hook to quickly connect with them and understand well what their motivations are for the particular revenge they decide to execute. Obviously, here the plan is not associated with killing other peoplebut it does sink their reputations.
This has always been key in adolescent cinema, but in these times it has acquired an extra degree of importance due to the importance of social networks and the online world. Before, a rumor could spread like wildfire and reach other places, but it almost always did so in a distorted way. Now such a hard blow can ruin your image forever and everywhere.
Many virtues with a big drawback
That is an idea with which the script signed by Celeste Ballard and Jennifer Kaytin Robinsonthe latter also director of ‘Revancha ya’, plays at all times, giving us the greatest joy in everything related to the character played by austin abrams (‘Euphoria’). That’s when the film is more scathing and exhibits that dose of bad milk that is diluted too much in its last act.
However, the great claim of the function is in its two main characters played by Camila Mendez (‘Riverdale’) and maya hawke (‘Stranger Things’). Strictly speaking, it’s hard to believe either of them as a teenager, since Mendes is already 28 years old to Hawke’s 24, but ‘Revancha ya’ transcends its status as a youth pastime to propose something else. I have no doubt that this was also what ended up deciding both of them to participate in ‘Revancha ya’, something that both know how to take full advantage of.
With this I do not mean that you can expect from ‘Revancha ya’ a proposal as unique and unrepeatable as that of ‘School for Young Killers’, but it does honor those attempts to distinguish itself, and I’m not just thinking of all the reflections via voiceover of Hawke’s character. Here we really try to approach the adolescent cinema of the 90s to pay homage to it -one of his two great cameos immediately takes us back to that time- and twist it at the same time.
At least that is what happens in terms of the script and, to a lesser extent, the interpretation, because visually there is nothing to celebrate too much in the film. It is not that it is a flat proposal to muddle through, but it is that occasional flirtation with black humor perhaps it required a riskier bet to finish elevating it as a new benchmark within this subgenre.
However, his two main weaknesses appear right in the last few minutes. On the one hand, ‘Revancha ya’ does not offer anything that justifies leaving until almost two hours of footage, but it is fair to recognize that it is not really noticeable until you decide that the time has come to play it safe and comfortable to broadcast a uninspiring moral. It is a bit as if he suddenly decided to go against nature with respect to what he had seen until then.
In short
‘Revancha ya’ had it all in the face to become a new benchmark for adolescent cinema, drinking directly from that type of 90s proposals to take it to their field, but it does not finish off the play and ends up leaving a bittersweet taste. Despite this, it’s worth taking a look at.
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