Raw

Starring: Garane Marillier, Ella Rumpf, Rabah Nait Oufella, Laurent Lucas, Joana Preiss, Bouli Lanners
Directed by: Julia Ducournau
Rating: R
Genre: Drama, Horror
2017

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: A young woman (Garane Marillier) who has been a vegetarian her whole life eats meat during a hazing ritual at university. An uncontrollable taste for meat begins to grow in her.

Review:

Tim: I went into Raw knowing nothing about it, other than seeing it listed on someone's best of 2017 list. I'm not sure exactly what they were thinking, as the film is only decent. However, it's not all bad- I certainly didn't expect to watch a French cannibal movie. Now, for those people who loved the film, I imagine they were taken by the symbolism present in the movie. Yes, the film is about cannibalism, but it's a film about hunger, about feminism, about women trying to find their place in the world and what they need to go through to be successful. The movie is a giant metaphor. I thought this was clever, but it certainly didn't great elevate the movie in my mind. I'm all for deeper metaphors, but I also want the movie to be good. This is a gross-out, gory movie. It's decent, but not much more than that.

The story is actually pretty clever. It's one of the better written cannibal films I've seen (not that there's many). It was interesting to see how the protagonist's "hunger" developed and eventually, as mysteries are slowly revealed, what it all means. This is a coming-of-age movie wrapped up in a fairly disturbing cannibal movie. You certainly have to give director Julia Ducournau credit for attempting something audacious like this. The movie does enough to hold your attention. However, I can't say I was especially drawn into the characters. And this had nothing to do with having to read subtitles (I don't mind that at all). The characters are hard to care about. You don't exactly know what's happening for much of the film and it's hard to connect with someone who seems mentally unstable and enjoys eating human flesh. Maybe women could connect with it more as they see the transformation that takes place as a metaphor for their own development and maturation, but even that's a little bit of a stretch. I'm sorry, but I didn't find the characters compelling enough to be invested in them, especially after such bizarre and unconventional behavior.

As a horror movie, the film spends most of its time trying to gross us out. We see our protagonist eat a giant slab of raw meat. In the most disturbing sequence (maybe) we see her eat a human finger. It's quite graphic and disgusting. It's likely the moment that fans of these kinds of movies started loving the film. I thought it was well executed and memorable, but it was certainly hard to watch. As the movie progresses, we see increasingly violent and disturbing behavior, mostly around eating people who are still alive. It's brutal and gross and while effective, not wholly enjoyable without really caring about the characters.

Garane Marillier was quite impressive in the lead role. For a young actress, she was fully committed to the role. She was a highlight of the film. Ella Rumpf is effective as well. The rest of the cast was decent.

I certainly understand if people enjoyed Raw more than I did. It's graphic and gory and some people love that stuff. However, a movie needs more compelling characters than what we got here. The mystery and the ending is certainly memorable, but nothing in this film really blew me away. I cringed, but I didn't care as much as I needed to. I'm happy I decided to watch this movie because it's so different, but it's not nearly as effective as some people claim.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating: 6.5



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