Do Revenge, 2022

Popular Drea wants revenge on her boyfriend for publishing her sex tape, and exchange student Eleanor is haunted by a rumour. The two teenagers team up to take action against their tormentors.

Initial release: September 16, 2022

Director: Jennifer Kaytin Robinson

Distributed by: Netflix

Budget: $10 million

Cinematography: Brian Burgoyne

Music by: Este Haim; Amanda Yamate.

Do Revenge is a 2022 American teen black comedy film directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson, who co-wrote the screenplay with Celeste Ballard.  It stars Camila Mendes, Maya Hawke, Austin Abrams, Rish Shah, and Sarah Michelle Gellar, and it is loosely inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train (1951).  It was released on Netflix on September 16, 2022, and received generally positive reviews from critics.

TRAILER

PLOT

Drea is a popular student attending Rosehill Country Day High School, an elite private school in Miami on a scholarship.  However, she becomes a social outcast after an intimate video she sent to her equally popular boyfriend, Max, is leaked online.  Despite his denial of her, Drea blames Max for the video's release and punches him in the face, resulting in their breakup of her.

 Over the summer, Drea works at a tennis camp where she meets Eleanor, a tomboyish, shy girl from a wealthy background who is transferring to Rosehill as a senior in September.  When Drea's car fails to start, Eleanor offers her a ride and tells her about also becoming an outcast when a false rumor spreads that she forcibly kissed Carissa, another Rosehill student, at a summer camp years earlier.

Realizing they will not get justice on their own, Drea and Eleanor devise a plan to exact revenge on the other's enemy: Drea on Carissa and Eleanor on Max.  Following a makeover, Eleanor slowly infiltrates Drea's old clique of popular students, while Drea tries to get close to Carissa by working at the school farm, also befriending Russ, an unpopular student and Carissa's friend of hers.

 Eleanor is invited to a pool party thrown by Max, where she discovers he is cheating on his new girlfriend, Tara (Drea's former best friend of his).  Drea runs into Carissa at the beach with Russ, and steals her keys to the farm's locked greenhouse full of marijuana and magic mushrooms that Carissa is storing.

 At the school's Senior Ring Ceremony, Drea places the drugs found at the secret greenhouse in their classmates' diner with the intention of stealing Max's phone to obtain evidence of his wrongdoings from him.  She also anonymously tips off the headmaster about the greenhouse, getting Carissa expelled and sent to rehab. 

At the Valentine's Day assembly, Eleanor shares Max's texts to the entire student body, but the plan fails when Max and Tara pretend to be a polyamorous couple, which in turn becomes the school's latest trend.  Drea spirals after getting rejected from her dream school, Yale University, and concocts a new plan to destroy Max and her popular former friends at the upcoming Admissions Party, which can only be attended by those accepted by Ivy League schools.

 Eleanor begins to accept her new popularity and Drea's old friends, beginning a relationship with Max's twin sister Gabbi.  When Max and his friends surprise Eleanor for her birthday, Drea crashes the party and nearly jeopardizes their revenge scheme for her.  They fight, going their separate ways after Eleanor asserts that there is no evidence that Max leaked Drea's video of her.  Gabbi overhears this and breaks up with Eleanor for taking Max's side.

Drea, seeking dirt on Eleanor, visits Carissa at a rehab facility. Carissa reveals Eleanor is actually "Nosey" Nora Cutler, a girl they both went to summer camp with. It was Drea who outed Nora and spread the rumor, an event she had forgotten, which prompted Eleanor to change her name and undergo a rhinoplasty. Drea confronts Eleanor, who reveals she had been playing her all along, aiming to cause the same pain she endured from the rumor. Eleanor threatens to frame Drea's mother, a nurse, for drug possession if she refuses to expose her old friends at the Admissions Party. Later, Eleanor purposefully T-bones Drea's car, sending her to the hospital to create an elaborate sob story that permits access to the party.

During the Admissions Party, Drea reveals Eleanor to be "Nosey Nora" to Max and friends, but immediately regrets it and apologizes to Eleanor for her past actions.  Their emotional reconciliation is interrupted when Max reveals he discovered their plot against him.  He plans to expose them and confesses to releasing Drea's video of her, unaware Eleanor is videoing him.  The girls project Max's confession to the entire party, turning everyone against him.  Max is expelled from Rosehill and his spot at Yale is offered to Drea, who rejects it.  She and Eleanor skip graduation and drive off into the sunset.

 Drea apologizes to Russ, Eleanor reconciles with Gabbi, and Max joins a toxic masculinity support group.

Rating: 8 Stars