Grace herself, peering at her visage in a mirror, is taken aback. In terms of memorable moments, the image of Grace in her ripped-up wedding dress and Chuck Taylors, holding a shotgun high with bullets strapped to her chest, is immediately framed as iconic. Early on, when his wife snarks that Grace will never be a part of the family, he relishes the thought: “Of course not, dear, she has a soul.” Brody plays Daniel with a miasma of both disappointment and disregard hanging over him. One of the most immediately intoxicating turns in the film comes from Adam Brody as the alcohol-soaked failure of a son Daniel, who regards the violent familial rituals with contempt. Andie MacDowell gives a slippery performance as the family’s matriarch Becky, her sweet voice as much a weapon as the bow and arrow she carries. The flood of jokes about inherited wealth and vapidity wouldn’t hit so well if it weren’t for the distinctiveness of each of the family members. Along the way there is violence, and directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett don’t shy away from the catharsis that comes with each character’s brutality.
At the start of the hunt, it’s clear that the filmmakers are, for now, less concerned with articulating the particulars of the Le Domas’s mythology (in short, their wealth is the result of a complex pact with the devil), and more interested in laying bare the crumbling institution of marriage and the vapid morals of the one percent.Įven as Ready or Not skewers the emptiness of the rich and exaggerates the terror of in-laws, the film never takes itself too seriously, preferring instead to have delirious fun critiquing the behaviors of the status-obsessed. If she isn’t found and killed before dawn, the powerful family believes they’ll die instead. It’s not until Grace witnesses a maid take a bullet in the face that she realizes the stakes of the game are life or death. And the ripple of shock that envelopes the family when they realize the game they’ll be playing is hide-and-seek. The strange ritualism with which a late-night game is chosen post-wedding her in-laws claim it’s a welcome-to-the-family tradition. The sharp-edged Aunt Helene (Nicky Guadagni), who stares at Grace with murderous intent. The portents are there if only Grace would pay attention. Weaving plays Grace, a new bride who finds herself mired in the eccentricities of her husband Alex Le Domas’s (Mark O’Brien) exceedingly wealthy family. This is why Samara Weaving’s guttural scream in Ready or Not hits with such force - it has eons of anger behind it.
The fear of never truly knowing your partner pervades even classic works like Alfred Hitchcock’s quicksilver Suspicion, starring Joan Fontaine and Cary Grant, and the seductive fairy-tale Bluebeard. Pop culture has done little to dissuade me of my belief.
Perhaps it’s the violence that cuts closer to home, reverberating in the stories I’ve heard from aunts, friends, strangers in group therapy, and my own mother. Perhaps it’s the stories I’m greeted with nearly every day of intimate violence around the country - women habitually brutalized, burned alive by their partners, arrested for handing in their abusive husbands’ guns out of fear. Photo: Eric Zachanowich/Twentieth Century FoxĪs far back as I can remember, I have considered marriage a prison for women. For all the blood and mayhem, it is Samara Weaving’s guttural scream that forces us to bear witness to the horrors of institutions.