Freaks

At least once a year, there is a film that no one expects much from, but in the end it is a pleasant surprise and Freaks delivers a lot of value for money. A beautifully crafted mystery film that is strange, unsettling, and secretive from the start, but also suspenseful and entertaining. The film raises some interesting questions and gradually answers them with unexpected and imaginative twists as it progresses. The performance by the young Lexy Kolker is perhaps the best by a child actor since Jacob Tremblay in Room, and the finale is unexpectedly quite action-packed and bloody. If the film had, say, a $20 million higher bigger budget, we'd all be sitting in the cinema right now applauding, but maybe we'll see that in a possible sequel! The less you know, the better for you. Best mystery flick of the year. 8.5/10. (01/12/2019)

Freaks is most original take on Hollywood blockbuster motifs in the form of a small indie film, which at the same time keeps its distance and looks down on them with its wit. This film is the surprise of the year, as it was conceived to first raise questions and skillfully deceive, then surprise by revealing an original film world, and then emotionally engage. By playing with the viewer as fairly as possible – without a single purposeless scene included solely for effect – it conveys a bombastic experience with a deluge of fresh ideas. The young Lexy Kolker turns in an excellent performance. Don’t watch the trailers and don’t read the plot synopses! [Sitges FF] (09/10/2018)

Just in case anyone is reading this comment as the first, I’d like to repeat the advice of previous commenters: if you don’t know anything about this film, avoid finding anything about it and, for God’s sake, do not watch the trailer. At least the entire first half greatly capitalises from throwing the viewer into the whirlpool of a weird story where they can’t figure anything out – who, what, why, how? At the beginning, the only thing we know is that a little girl called Chloe lives together with her strangely behaving father (?) in a kind of dilapidated building, and that she’s forbidden to go outside. And this dark paranoia, which is soon complicated by a series of other mysterious motifs, is only very slowly given some order. What is not slow at all, though, is the pace at which the plot moves forward. There’s always something happening; twists alternate twists, ideas alternate ideas. Although in the end the main motif turns out to be ordinary and trite, the way it’s presented, from its point of view and with such balls, is something that we’ve probably never seen before. There are times when you can see that a million or two more in the budget wouldn’t have hurt, but overall it’s a lot of fun. (29/11/2019)

I’ve often mentioned in my reviews that I’m not particularly fond of children in film, but I was simply floored by the performance of the nine-year-old Lexa Kolker. Many a seasoned actor could learn a few things from her (though I’m not sure if it would be of any help to Ben Affleck or Jennifer Lawrence). I found the film entertaining from start to finish. While X-Men seem to be getting old, the sight of mutants here was captivating. (11/01/2020)

Freaks slightly fools the viewer – in the first half, it lets them wonder what exactly is happening in the film, overwhelming them with a bunch of confusing motifs and weird characters (basically every single character feels disturbing and puzzling). In the second half, however, the film introduces a surprising outcome that gives the previous plot meaning and plays nicely with the viewer’s emotions. Bruce Dern as a cynical crude-ish ice-cream man is incredibly cool and his interaction with Emil Hirsch fills the film with witty lines and lots of fun, especially towards the end. And I believe we will be hearing a lot more about little Lexy Kolker. [Sitges 2018] (08/10/2018)