Institute History
Description
Jen joins her married lover, Richard, for a romp at his secluded desert villa before his annual hunting vacation. However, when his leering pals arrive, they’re a far cry from Richard’s millionaire-Adonis charms, and they feel entitled to make their own advances on Jen and ignore her rejections. After being violently assaulted and left for dead in the middle of the desert, Jen comes back to life, and the men’s hunting game is transformed into a ruthless manhunt.
Like its protagonist, Revenge (which premiered to shocked audiences at this year’s Toronto International Film Festival) rises like a phoenix from the ashes of its exploitation-film, rape-revenge forebears and celebrates grind-house style and excess while upending genre expectations with its director’s unapologetically female gaze. In her sunbaked, blood-soaked feature directorial debut, Coralie Fargeat brazenly and playfully embraces the intense violence of Jen’s retribution, creating a revelatory, righteous, gore-filled assault on misogyny that is not for the faint of heart. Actress Matilda Lutz embodies with ferocity and physicality Jen’s transformation from self-confident object of desire to superhuman survivor.