Raw is finger-eating good, which could be interpreted in many ways. The French thriller about a veterinarian student who develops a taste for human flesh is a well made and interesting little film, though it fails to sink its teeth into you the way you’d hope.
Garance Marillier serves up a tasty performance as Justine, a virgin (of course) who discovers she has a gay roommate (Rabah Nait Oufella) and a penchant for fleshy nibblets. Your typical college experimental stuff, you know. Written and directed by Julia Ducournau, Raw plays out more like a drama, relying on Marillier’s performance to bring her vision to life.
Beautifully filmed, Raw does what you’d expect a French film about modern college-level cannibalism to do: approach its topic through a slow boil, patiently slathering the plot and its characters, marinating them until the juicy goodness oozes out.
Unfortunately, that slow boil doesn’t amount to as much as you’d expect; the reveal at the end isn’t particularly mindblowing, and the climax isn’t the gorefest most fans of cannibalism horror want or expect. That doesn’t make Raw a bad movie–but it’s one that fails to live up to expectations or establish why someone would ever feel the urge to watch it again.
Nonetheless, Raw is engaging enough, and Ducournau relishes in the moments where she allows Justine to go full cannibal (or even half-cannibal).
Raw is a good-looking film with quality acting and decent writing, but even still, the movie’s nom noms aren’t worth the menu price.
Review by Erik Samdahl unless otherwise indicated.