The Reel Review
A couple of teenage girls, humiliated and ostracized by separate social scandals, conspire to exact revenge on one another’s tormentors, in this dark comedy starring Camila Mendes (Riverdale, Palm Springs) and Maya Hawke (Stranger Things, Fear Street: Part One: 1994).
Do Revenge borrows heavily from A LOT of better 1990s and 2000s teen comedies such as Clueless, Mean Girls, Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion and Ten Things I Hate About You, with a score similarly loaded with catchy pop tunes and over-the-top, cotton candy-colored costuming. Mendes’ Drea is a meaner, more vindictive Cher from Clueless, with Hawke’s Eleanor a lankier, lesbian knockoff of Lindsay Lohan’s Cady from Mean Girls. Cruel Intentions star Sarah Michelle Gellar even has a supporting role as the private school’s headmaster.
For a pretty predictable premise eerily absent of any adults (and where the “teens” look more like the twentysomethings that they actually are), Do Revenge still manages to stay entertaining. Director/co-writer Jennifer Kaytin Robinson even tosses in a clever twist that turns the comedy on its head, although the film finally loses steam with a silly and overly-convoluted third act. Still, Do Revenge is still better than most teen comedies.
REEL FACTS
• 28-year-old Virginia native and NYU graduate Camila Mendes had her big break as Veronica in the CW series Riverdale.
• Maya Hawke is the daughter of Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman, whom she bears an uncanny resemblance.
• Although set in Miami, Do Revenge also was filmed in Atlanta.
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