Review: Assassination Nation

Updating Arthur Miller's The Crucible for the #MeToo generation, Assassination Nation takes the extreme to even more extremes. Mixing the luridness of Seventies grindhouse films with the unapologetic assaultive quality of Gaspar Noé's films, it shines a harsh light on the way we live now.

Opening with a montage of trigger warnings that promises scenes depicting bullying, drugs, booze, sexual content, murder and attempted murder, attempted rape, homophobia, transphobia, torture, toxic masculinity, racism, and fragile male egos, amongst other things, Assassination Nation focuses on 18-year-old Lilly Colson (Odessa Young) and her three best friends: Em (singer-songwriter Abra), who lives with her single mother (Anika Noni Rose), trans woman Bex (Hari Nef), and blonde Sarah (Suki Waterhouse). Seemingly like most of their generation, their lives revolve around partying and the internet, whether it be posting the minutiae of their everyday lives or commenting on others' posts. Life, to paraphrase Warren Beatty's observation of Madonna in the 1991 documentary Truth or Dare, isn't life unless it's on-camera.

There are no such things as secrets anymore as the residents of Salem soon discover when they're hit with a hacking scandal that first targets their mayor and then soon spreads to affect them all, including Lilly, whose clandestine sexting affair with an older married man (Joel McHale) is soon exposed and who soon finds herself and her friends the focus of the town's mob mentality. There will be blood and misogyny and slut-shaming and violence and gore, but with it also a scathing and often salient look at how the internet breeds mass hysteria and also the impossible, and often dangerous, expectations placed upon women who are living in a society where online porn seems the primary source of not only sex education, but the guidebook for how women should be treated.

Writer-director Sam Levinson certainly knows how to concoct a provocative brew. This is essentially the cinematic version of having your cake and eating it too - viewers can't necessarily indict his handling of female sexuality without calling into question their own judgements and prejudices. Whilst the third act reaches The Purge-like heights of lunacy, it does make sense in the grander scheme of the narrative. When the majority of the world uses and abuses you and makes you feel less than, what other choice is there but to take drastic measures to avenge the wrongs and regain your power? It's a bold and daring treatise, though there are plenty of times when the film's most intriguing themes are overwhelmed by the visual and aural clutter.

Assassination Nation

Directed by: Sam Levinson

Written by: Sam Levinson

Starring: Odessa Young, Suki Waterhouse, Hari Nef, Abra, Anika Noni Rose, Colman Domingo, Maude Apatow, Bill Skarsgård, Joel McHale, Bella Thorne, Jennifer Morrison, Kathryn Erbe