One thing to know about me is I will always root for the villain. Some personal favorites: Javier Bardem’s flaxen-haired, supremely camp Raoul Silva in Skyfall (in a very homoerotic scene, he gets James Bond to admit that being tied up with his nuts hanging out the bottom of a chair isn’t the first time he’s gotten kinky with other men); Cruella de Vil (obvious reasons); and the iconic, showstopping, incredible Will Benson — you know, Will, Ben’s son from I Still Know What You Did Last Summer. That name alone: Oscar, Grammy, Tony, Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Award.
Now there is a new villain worth rooting for, based exclusively on her delivery of one crazed line. The scene, in Netflix’s Do Revenge, has, as Mariah Carey would say, “vividly emblazoned†itself in my mind. The film is about two teenagers dead set on doing revenge on each other’s nemesis. Drea (Camila Mendes — no relation to Shawn) is besmirched by way of revenge porn, and Eleanor (Maya Hawke — actual relation to Ethan) has her character assassinated as a preteen by a rumor that she is a lesbian predator, which is only half true! They also say “do revenge†several times out loud, and honestly? Big slay, mama.
Do Revenge starts out like every other teen movie. There’s a huge party at which we meet our new bestie with undiagnosed Main-Character Syndrome: Drea, a beautiful, insufferable, fashionable (on a budget), underprivileged woman of color (she won’t let you forget this even though that’s MY line) surrounded by extremely privileged, similarly insufferable friends. At this point, Drea has made it on the cover of Thorne, the school’s magazine, as well as onto Teen Vogue’s “Next Gen List,†and everyone who’s anyone wants to be her. Par exemple, Ariana (Francesca Reale) says she would “give her left and right tit to be her.â€
After the party, Drea and her boyfriend, Max, played by Euphoria’s Austin Abrams, hook up in the back of his Mercedes-Benz G-Wagon, and he convinces her to make a sexy video and send it to him. She obliges (with her face in it!), and of course Max leaks the video. I know you’re probably thinking, What is the line from the movie?, and I’m getting there! Drea not only loses her popularity, but it’s like a reverse Mean Girls, in which she’s Cady Heron, becoming an outcast at the end of her junior year. She knows her rich friends through Max, and since he got them in the divorce, Drea and her tacky custom cups are iced out. Cut to Drea spending her summer working at a country club because she isn’t rich like the other kids and has to earn her way through life. The thing is, Drea didn’t leave her mean-girl baggage behind in first class when she lost her status. She brought it with her to economy and is desperately trying to make it fit when it’s not airline compliant! Okay, the line is coming up.
If there’s one piece of sage, villainous advice I live by, it’s that my enemy’s enemy is my friend. Enter lanky Eleanor. Ellie overhears Erica, the deliverer (and alleged doer) of the line, played by Sophie Jonas (née Turner), gossiping about how she helped “distribute†Drea’s sex tape, thus playing a part in ruining Drea’s life. Ellie decides to enlighten Drea, and they forge an alliance based on how much they both hate Erica and agree that someone should teach her a lesson. Now, again, I love a villain. Erica is a bitchy, country-club redhead version of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy. And we have rarely (if ever) seen Turner like this. Where she was often a victim in Game of Thrones, here she’s a preppy, menacing, and vindictive tyrant — especially after Drea allegedly plants a white substance and maybe tips off the other country-club employees that Erica has been hitting the slopes. We don’t see the latter onscreen, but we do see the fallout when Erica is asked to surrender her tennis skirt, racquet, and chic Barbie visor.
“This is insane!!!!!! I don’t even do coCAINE,†Erica shrieks (the last syllable escapes her mouth like a disastrous echo from a tuba in the New York Philharmonic). “Drea, I know you did this, you insufferable cunt! You framed me!â€
“You framed her!!!!!†Erica’s minion, Jessica (Eliza Bennett — no relation to Tony), volunteers softly through tears.
Something takes over Erica. Her face distorts, and her arms twist and turn like Vanessa Hudgens when she first got into vogueing. Maybe it’s cocaine, but in my experience it — you know what? This isn’t about me. She screams, “I don’t even know what it LOOOOOKS like!†It’s that delivery. “I don’t even do coCAINE!!†The octave change! “I don’t even do coCAINE,†she pleads with onlookers as Drea watches her plan come together like the guests at an Eyes Wide Shut party. That “I don’t even do coCAINE,†in a roaring growl — it leaps from her mouth, distorted by the realization that a villain has out-villain’d her. Seeing this side of Turner feels like watching a house on fire; it’s electric, dangerous, and exciting, and you can’t look away.
Now, for her to say she doesn’t “even know what it looks like� Girl is at a COUNTRY CLUB — of course she knows what it looks like! But if I were giving Erica the benefit of the doubt — which why wouldn’t I? if there’s one thing white women don’t get enough of, it’s the benefit of the doubt — it’s that cocaine is used more often on the golf course than in tennis. Maybe she doesn’t know what it looks like. And to be fair, Drea did set her up.
“I don’t even do coCAINE.†Turner’s deafening delivery has spelunked the cavernous depths of my mind, made itself at home, and doesn’t plan on paying rent, and to be honest, I hope it never leaves. The barbarity of the scene is reflected throughout the movie, in which almost everyone becomes a villain at some point. The film positions itself as a stylish feminist romp (in a good way), a whodunit, a mash-up of “nerd gets a makeover but realizes it’s what’s on the inside that counts†movies, and ends with a perfect Usual Suspects twist. We want to root for Drea because she’s the underdog woman of color, but we also (for a millisecond) want to root for Erica because she was legit set up, finds herself doing coCAINE, develops an actual coCAINE problem, and spends the rest of her year finger-painting in an admittedly lush rehab facility. And she has to live with the name “Ericaâ€! Hasn’t she suffered enough? If the racquet does not fit, you must acquit! Or at least let our villainous cokehead get a spinoff!