Do Revenge Review: Camila Mendes and Maya Hawke's Breezy Comedy Brings Hitchcock to High School

Part of the school is named Horowitz Hall, the phrase "mean girl" gets deployed, and Sarah Michelle Gellar herself shows up in a clutch cameo. Do Revenge, a Netflix original directed and co-written by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, wears its love of '90s teen movies on its sleeve. How well it fares by comparison, however, might be determined by your level of nostalgia, or how much tolerance you have for plots centered on Instagram, leaked texts, and teens who deliberately speak in memes.

The premise is yanked from Strangers on a Train, a 1950 Patricia Highsmith novel that was adapted by Alfred Hitchcock (and by Danny DeVito for the comedy Throw Momma From the Train). In this version, though, the two men who wish to commit murder (but trade victims, so the police will find no motive) are high school girls at a ludicrously fancy prep school who have been wronged, and wish to… do revenge! (Yes, they are aware that this is poor grammar, but their passions take precedence over such issues.)

Drea (Camila Mendes) is a striver from middle class background who got into Rosehill — a school with an outdoor cold brew coffee bar — through a scholarship. Junior year she works her way to the pinnacle of popularity, until a saucy video she created for her boyfriend Max (Austin Abrams) leaks. When she's convinced he is responsible, she socks him one in the jaw. Max is untouchable, coming from such a wealthy family, and Drea is quickly ostracized.

That summer, working at a tennis club, she meets someone prepped to transfer to Rosehill, Eleanor (Maya Hawke), a kooky queer girl with a pet lizard named Oscar Winner Olivia Colman. Turns out Carissa (Ava Capri), a girl who traumatized Eleanor as an early teen by falsely accusing her of being a predator, goes to Rosehill, too. A pact is soon made for Eleanor to humiliate Max and for Drea to ruin Carissa in a brutal fashion.

6.1

Do Revenge

at Netflix

Like

• Hawke is a clever comedic performer
• Outrageous costumes are a blast

Dislike

• The script is light on actual jokes
• It lacks originality

Eleanor's quarry comes first. Turns out the crunchy head of the gardening club is actually growing marijuana and psilocybin on campus. (Whoopsie!) The girls decide to expose this, but not before making sure everyone gets blitzed out on hallucinogens at some frilly pomp event.

Drea's takedown is a little more complicated, especially when Eleanor finds herself catching feels (do the kids still say that?) for Max's younger sister, Gabbi (Talia Ryder). Then a big fat honking twist comes that turns the entire enterprise on its head. I'm not giving that away, though, lest the publicists from Netflix decide to come and do revenge against me!

This movie is, by and large, breezy and agreeable, but it's not particularly clever or original, and it's strikingly lacking in jokes. The amusement comes in the way the scenes cut together (yes, there is a makeover montage), but it's riding on chuckles rather than laughs. Jennifer Kaytin Robinson's previous film was Netflix's atrocious Someone Great, and she is also credited as a co-writer on the most recent Thor picture, among the worst (and certainly the most ephemeral) of the entire Marvel series. Compared to these two works, Do Revenge is a relative triumph.

What it has going for it most is Maya Hawke, a very gifted performer who carries herself through the comedy quite well. Hawke makes funny faces when you least expect them, and it's fun to watch. Baked into the story is Hawke's character becoming an expressive and experimental dresser, and costume designer Alana Morshead knocks this out of the park, transforming Eleanor from a schlump into a walking piece of pop art.

It's entirely possible that Do Revenge will mean more to an actual teen girl than it will to me, a man of Methusalean numbers. But I'm not so sure. I know if I said, "You are acting like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction" to my 16-year-old niece she'd have no idea what I'm talking about. She might, however, smile at the comeback about having "Glennergy." One of the lessons of Do Revenge is to stop being so judgmental, so maybe I shouldn't get too worked up about this.

Premieres: Friday, Sept. 16 on Netflix
Who's in it: Camila Mendes, Maya Hawke, Austin Abrams, Ava Capri, Sophie Turner
Who's behind it: Jennifer Kaytin Robinson (director, co-writer), Celeste Ballard (co-writer)
For fans of: Revenge, '90s teen movies, Maya Hawke