Frightfest 2024: ‘Saint Clare’ Review
Stars: Bella Thorne, Frank Whaley, Ryan Phillippe, Rebecca De Mornay, Jan Luis Castellanos, Bart Johnson, Dylan Flashner, Joy Rovaris | Written by Mitzi Peirone, Guinevere Turner | Directed by Mitzi Peirone
Like most teenagers, Clare Bleeker (Bella Thorne) is a normal teenage girl who harbours secrets. But, unlike most teenagers, Clare is a serial killer intent on ending the lives of predacious men. But Clare is not your garden-variety sociopath, as she believes what she is doing is in the service of God. As she reminds us: “Everything I have said and done has been in the hands of God. I was born to do this. I am not afraid.” Accompanied by Bob (Frank Whaley), an apparition of one of Bleeker’s past victims, Clare journeys through the 90-minute runtime, lurching from disaster to the next as she descends into the seedy criminal underworld.
Based on Don Roff’s novel, “Clare at Sixteen”, Mitzi Peirone’s Saint Clare has a lot of source material to draw from but ultimately fails to find its voice cinematically. The main issue with this feature is that it does not know what story it wants to tell.
The audience is introduced to Clare – the catholic schoolgirl turned serial killer haunted by the voices in her head. Her character is akin to Hellblade’s Senua, and the audience is led to believe that we are about to follow a story about duality: is Clare a vigilante, or is she simply suffering from a severe mental health condition?
It doesn’t matter because this distinctive characterisation is abandoned, and before the audience knows it, they are thrown into a sub-plot which completely overwhelms the main story. Tonally, the film is messy because it does not cohesively group together the themes of fanaticism and feminism. At times, we explore this through bloody violence and the next through a school play where the women play male characters and vice versa.
The compounding effect of all these issues is that from the second act onwards, we are so far removed from the original premise Saint Clare promised to explore. Adding to the list of issues is the inclusion of characters that ultimately feel out of place, such as Ryan Phillippe’s Timmons and Rebecca De Mornay’s Arlene. It felt like a wasted opportunity because these characters do not have as much impact on the story as they ought to have had.
The most striking element of Saint Clare is the cinematography. It is stylised to make it an engaging watch, but it can only hold the audience’s attention for so long. The film’s clunky dialogue, mixed ideas, and unfocused plot stick out like a sore thumb. It is not entirely clear what the messaging behind Saint Clare is because it flits between being a thriller and then taking a sideswipe at society’s alleged oppression of women.
What started as an intriguing premise quickly unravelled into something jarring and made for uncomfortable viewing. Had Peirone leaned more into the action elements of this film and explored Clare’s descent into madness, one cannot help but think this would have made for a great film. Sadly, this was not the case.
** 2/5
Saint Clare screened as part of this year’s Frightfest London
