Bloody, funny and thought-provoking
Assassination Nation ★★★ 1/2 (out of 4) Starring Odessa Young, Hari Nef, Suki Waterhouse, Abra and Joel McHale. Written and directed by Sam Levinson. 110 minutes. Opens Friday at major theatres. 18A
Think of Assassination Nation as a modern fable — a wild, blood-soaked fable.
Billed as a satire, it has an unexpected plausibility in the age of Trump, where social norms and niceties have been cast aside and people feel free to vent and act upon their vilest impulses. The big one unleashed here: misogyny.
The story opens with the declaration that Salem, a fictional town of 17,000 people, has “lost its motherf---ing mind.” (Calling the town Salem is a nice, if unsubtle, touch.)
The film then retraces its footsteps to the beginning, when an anonymous hacker starts taking down prominent townsfolk, including the school principal and the mayor, by revealing secret shames that have unwisely been committed to the digital world. Tensions rise, paranoia is unleashed, mayhem ensues.
Director Sam Levinson, who wrote the screenplay, displays an interesting visual style throughout as he juggles a range of characters and subplots. At the centre of it all is Lily (Odessa Young) and her three BFFs. When the finger gets pointed at them, things get really hairy.
Young is the film’s anchor and a superb choice, displaying a toughness and cynicism with a hint of vulnerability. It’s unfortunate that Levinson’s script doesn’t give us a little more time with her cohorts Bex, Sarah and Em (Hari Nef, Suki Waterhouse and Abra).
But within the script, there are serious gems of wisdom that we can actually use in the Digital Age, foremost among them that privacy really is dead and we’d better get used to it.
Typically, things get really out of hand, reaching a crescendo on one fateful night.
The film is well-paced, darkly funny and the suspense builds splendidly. Like any decent fable, there’s a moral to the story, at a time in America when morality — or being a moral person — is under fire like never before.
So go for the action, suspense and black comedy, and come away knowing that there are real lessons to be learned that we ignore at our peril.