Reviews, Fresh and Blind Ambition

Noa meets Steve in the vegetable section. He is handsome, lighthearted and a doctor to boot. But she soon discovers something is amiss in this dark horror flick, Fresh.

Daisy Edgar-Jones, best known for the TV series Normal People, based on the Sally Rooney novel, is terrific as she morphs through the various states of mind one might have in such an abnormal situation in the movie Fresh

Fresh (R18+)
Disney+
★★★½

“I don’t eat animals,’’ notes Steve (Sebastian Stan) during his second dinner date with Noa (Daisy Edgar-Jones). They’re at her apartment somewhere in Canada and she is raving over the “insane” takeaway short ribs.

Fair enough, you think. Yes, they had sex on their first date, but they don’t know each other well, so no harm in clarifying their dietary ins and outs.

Plus Steve is handsome, lighthearted and a doctor to boot. Noa is so tired of all the doofuses she meets via online dating apps that Steve’s culinary tastes are hardly top of her mind.

They first met in a grocery store, in the fruit and vegetable section. “He was cute and funny and I didn’t think people met people in real life any more,’’ she briefs her best friend Mollie (Jojo T. Gibbs). But doesn’t Steve’s second date comment seem a bit over-specific? Wouldn’t most people simply say they were vegetarian?

This is the set up for Fresh, the feature debut of American filmmaker Mimi Cave, who is known for her work on music videos. The script is by Lauryn Kahn, her second film after the 2018 romantic comedy Ibiza.

It starts as an all-men-are-useless-but-this-one-might-be-ok rom-com and becomes, as the R rating suggests, a dark and weird horror flick, though one that never loses its sense of humour.

The director is no relation to the Australian rock star and writer Nick Cave, though as this 114-minute movie develops there are areas of common interest.

This is a tricky film to review because after a 30-minute pre-title scene — the rom-com bit — it goes down a much different path. I may have dropped a few hints but I will reveal no more of the plot line.

Suffice it to say that Steve is not who he first seems to be. He is a man of certain tastes and is connected to others who share them.

When he and Noa go away for a weekend in the country, everything changes. The scene where Noa realises something is awry is brilliant.

As we watch we can only guess the questions that are going through her mind. And when the answer arrives, it is worse than anything anyone imagined.

Edgar-Jones, best known for the TV series Normal People, based on the Sally Rooney novel, is terrific as she morphs through the various states of mind one might have in such an abnormal situation. Stan, who is Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier in the Avengers franchise, is calm and deliberate as a man on, shall we say, loose hinges.

There is a chemistry between the two, even when there shouldn’t be. The question is, who has bitten off more than they can chew? Noa? Steve? Each of them?

The director uses close-ups — especially of people eating — that attract then repel. Polish-born, Canada-based cinematographer Pawel ­Pogorzelski opens unexpected perspectives, as he did in the bizarre 2019 horror film ­Midsommar.

Fresh premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January. The lead producer is the writer-director Adam McKay, who is in the running for a best picture Oscar on March 28 for the satirical end-of-the-world movie Don’t Look Up.

This movie will not be to everyone’s taste. But it is well made, well acted, and has clever, surprising twists towards the end. It marks the debut director as a filmmaker to watch.

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Blind Ambition (M)
In cinemas
★★★½

You know how we all have seen films that a lot of people like but we do not?

One of mine is Sideways, Alexander Payne’s 2004 road-and-wine trip that was nominated for Oscars, won one, for adapted script, and lifted plonk sales in California.

For various reasons it doesn’t pop my cork. If I have to summarise, I’ll borrow from one of the stars of the far more entertaining, Australian-made documentary Blind Ambition. Under pressure to pin down a wine, he offers a verbal tasting note. The vino recalls a “sweaty donkey”.

He’s under the pump because he’s at the 2017 World Wine Tasting Championship in Burgundy, France. It’s a blind tasting and he and his three teammates have only a few minutes to identify the wine.

It’s possible he remembers the perspiring ass from his childhood days working the land in Zimbabwe.

The team – Joseph, Tinashe, Marlvin and Pardon – has taken the “Zimbabwean palate” to the competition for the first time.

“It’s like Egypt pulling together a team of skiers to go and compete in the Winter Olympics,’’ says Tamlyn Currin, one of the wine experts interviewed.

That line recalls the 1993 movie Cool Runnings, about Jamaica’s bobsleigh debut at the Winter Games, and there are some similarities in this real life adventure.

While the four men are Zimbabweans and proud of it, they did not meet in their homeland. They, like some three million others, fled Robert Mugabe’s regime in search of a better life.

In their case, as in so many, South Africa was the destination. They found work in restaurants. One started out tending the vegetable patch at the back of the eatery. Yet each became interested in wine, an unfamiliar drink. “I remember my first sip of wine,’’ Joseph says. “I didn’t like it.”

Even so, each one caught the bug and rose up the employment ladder to become sommeliers. They met, became friends and, as one says, “destiny” happened.

You don’t have to be a wine lover to enjoy this 90-minute documentary, which is co-directed by Australian filmmakers Robert Coe and Warwick Ross.

Their previous film, Red Obsession (2018), looks at the booming Chinese demand for wines from the Bordeaux region of France. Here they relate the personal story of each man, including through interviews with their wives and children, as well as their parents back in Zimbabwe.

In doing so they tell a wider, important humanitarian story. “The world needs to wake up to the fact that migrants are not cockroaches that need to be stamped out as an invasion of our sacred space,’’ says South African minister Paul Verryn, who opens his church to refugees.

When the team arrives in France for the competition, the tension builds. Suddenly we are in a sports movie and so, naturally, we need an eccentric coach. He arrives in the form of Frenchman Denis Garrett, who agrees to coach the Zimbabwean team for a fee of 800 euros. He speaks of himself in the third person: “Denis is a special man.” Asked by the filmmakers, “Do you think you can irritate?” he replies, “Immediately!”, which immediately won me over.

As this is a team sport, the foursome, each with their individual tastebuds, have to reach a consensus and commit it to the score sheet.

They taste six whites and six reds and must name the grape variety, the country of origin, the region, the producer and the vintage. The team with the most correct answers is the world champion. In 2017, there were 24 teams and the favoured ones included the French, naturellement, the Italians, Belgians, South Africans and New Zealanders (Australia did not enter). The Swedes, however, think they have everyone else over a barrel. “We’re not scared of anyone,’’ their team leader says.

I will not reveal who wins. Before the championship starts, the wine writer Jasper Morris jokes that tasting competitions – where one sips and spits – contain “nothing that is going to give you any pleasure”. I suspect this film will change his mind on that.

A scene from Blind Ambition