Salazar shows range in trippy revenge fantasy
Even with her eyes digitally enlarged (“Alita: Battle Angel”) or her whole body rotoscoped (“Undone”), Rosa Salazar gives grounded, magnetic performances.
Now, as the star of Netflix’s limited series “Brand New Cherry Flavor,” we get to see everything Salazar can do — emotionally, physically and wildly — with minimal computergenerated interference.
Sure, she’s often covered in blood and bruises. Her character, aspiring and cursed filmmaker Lisa Nova, also grows an extra reproductive organ in one particularly out-there episode. But for the most part, “Cherry” is a riveting showcase for Salazar’s ability to go to extreme lengths and persuade us she’s a real, flawed person all the way.
Adapted from a 1990s horror novel by Todd Grimson and executiveproduced by Lenore Zion (“Billions”) and Nick Antosca (“The Act”), “Cherry” is the kind of trippy, demonpossessed, #MeToo revenge fantasy that could only happen in Los Angeles.
Lisa is a talented indie horror director, originally from Brazil, who blows into Hollywood following a traumatic shoot in the woods near Fresno. The resulting short film impresses producer Lou Burke (Eric Lange). Not as powerful as he once was, Lou’s still able to make a feature deal happen for Lisa.
If she’s willing to play ball. Which, after Lisa removes his hand from her thigh, she clearly isn’t. So Lou steals Lisa’s idea and hires a music video director for the movie that should have been hers. Enraged, Lisa takes up witchy woman Boro (Catherine Keener) on an offer to hex Lou. Trouble is, the spell requires Lisa to bind with her victim. So while Lou copes with hiccup attacks, worms crawling out of his eyes and bad press in Variety, Lisa starts seeing mummified apparitions and a woman without a face.
Hit men, zombie minions and L.A. real estate agents are some of the more conventional horrors that come into her life. Some kind of hallucinogen is in somebody’s system a good 20% of the time. There is cannibalism and toad-licking. The phrase “having kittens” takes on a graphic new meaning.
Yep, this show is bonkers. But Salazar sets a down-to-earth tone that gives it ballast. “Cherry’s” noir-tinged presentation of Southern California in the ’90s feels authentic in its nihilism, too.
The series casually drops a lot of true inside knowledge about the movie business, its mechanics and the ruthlessness required to thrive there.
“I need you full-on, Isabelle Adjani ‘Possession’ level,” Lisa instructs her short’s unlucky leading lady (Siena Werber) in a flashback. It’s a reference most viewers won’t have a clue about, but film buffs will appreciate it as a perfect thing for a driven, manipulative director to say. (By the way, that Andrzej Zulawski horror provocation, heavily censored 40 years ago, has been restored and is getting rereleased in the fall).
Lou’s feelings about Lisa, as well as for his resentful wife (Leah Cairns) and son (Daniel Doheny), are nuanced beyond what a genre villain is usually allowed. Lange (“Lost,” “Escape at Dannemora”) never lets us forget he’s playing predatory scum, but he always remembers to invest Lou with wants and needs any human heart can relate to.
Indie stalwart Keener (“Get Out,” “Being John Malkovich”) is a scream as whatever Boro is, and not just when she’s scary. Warm, humorous, fun-loving and utterly amoral, she’s the unpredictable, otherworldly queen of her East L.A. jungle garden — and can be just as kooky in a desert suburb. It’s as sly as a performance can get.
Salazar holds the whole mess together, even when the show doesn’t know what it’s doing beyond being creepy/cool. Whether taking a psychosexual plunge, on a vengeful tear or making like a lost little girl, the actress keeps Lisa a relatable young woman who’s had enough — but always wants more. So do we.