Violet & Daisy is a movie I was lucky enough to stumble onto, and watch with only the trailer (below) to inform my expectations. The film’s direction, style, and acting needed only twenty minutes to win me over. Immediately I hit pause so I could pull up the film’s tomatometer. Of course, I was expecting to find my opinion validated by a high 80s or 90s rating. Imagine my surprise when I then saw a bitter 22% critic rating (and similarly painful 34% audience score). This movie deserves a decidedly positive critique in its favor, which is my objective herein. Additionally, I’m hoping this review can encourage new viewers to give this film a fair chance to impress.
Movie Overview
Violet & Daisy is an Action Thriller by Geoffrey S. Fletcher (co-writer of Precious). The plot follows two young, pretty girls who are trained assassins for a living. They receive straightforward kill assignments from their boss, and like unquestioning lambs they head out to commit slaughter. The girls, Violet (Alexis Bledel) and Daisy (Saoirse Ronan), treat their job like anyone else would, just another day in the life. In this comic-book-esque, surreal universe, killing is simply a mundane chore performed by jaded teens who only really get excited about trendy clothes, and icons named silly, sugary stuff like Barbie Sunday. It’s just work, until the girls find themselves assigned to an unusual target who throws their whole plan off-course.
Review of Violet & Daisy
Most other critics I read into found the story uninspired and confusing. The initial appeal of stylized combat, graphic novel framing, and ironic characterization of murderous teens was quickly overlooked or under-valued. Where I delighted in references to other action flicks, reviewers saw a hack who couldn’t be original. I’ll be looking into this movie with a bias towards creativity, in an effort to redeem this unfairly trashed movie.
The Tarantino Problem
Out of the twelve top critic blurbs on Violet & Daisy‘s rotten tomatoes page, three of them directly compare the film to Quentin Tarantino. And all three are negative comparisons. The connection is obvious, but it doesn’t need to be sneered about. See how Jay Stone rather miserably describes a scene wherein “blood issues forth in what is meant to be a terrible/funny fashion, that self-aware comic deadpan that gives the films of Quentin Tarantino their pungent knowingness”. Emphasis added to make sure you don’t misinterpret this as a compliment; he gave this movie only 2 out of 5 stars. I think it’s a mistake to be so easily annoyed by familiarity.
These critics seemed to have stopped short of actually engaging with the film almost immediately. The moment they saw a pretty assassin with a code-name, they immediately thought “Kill Bill” and changed the channel. Having seen enough Tarantino films for his lifetime, Jay Stone wrote Fletcher’s whole movie off as “frankly ridiculous”. In contrast, l found the comparable styles to be a result of Fletcher’s taste and inspiration rather than proof of superficial mimicry.
The Flashback Problem
(Spoilers ahead! This is the point of no return.)
One point of negative criticism I agree with to some extent is Jay Stone’s note about Daisy and Michael’s relationship-building arc. As Stone puts it, “the movie turns into a father-and-daughter melodrama in which most of the revelations arrive in arbitrary flashback”. I agree there was a marked tonal shift, and I too questioned the sudden abundance of flashbacks. One second, Violet is going to get more ammo. The next she is rushing back home as danger approaches the apartment in the form of other assassins trying to complete the kill order themselves. Mixed into the sequence, are flashbacks, from what could only have been minutes beforehand, showing Daisy and Michael bonding.
The plot largely takes place in a day or two, and circles just three characters within one apartment. It’s a kind of “bathtub story” and can easily suffer from claustrophobic boredom. The flashbacks may have been attempts to speed things up, and to keep the viewers’ interest in the admittedly slower third act. For me, this bit of action does feel clumsy, but I can forgive the difficulty of the plot for the meaningfulness of its content. And I’m a sucker for blood and violence, so I still enjoyed the ride overall.
The Setting Problem
Like Jay Stone, Matt Zoller Seitz describes the film with a tone suggesting the very idea of teen assassins is a mockable premise to begin with, worthy of disdain from the get-go. The only redeeming factor of the movie for Seitz is his love for James Gandolfini who plays Michael, the unusual mark that Violet and Daisy struggle to take down. Seitz mistakenly ignores the skills of both Bledel and Ronan, experienced and talented actors. In my eyes, for Bledel and Ronan to convincingly act as though they feel nothing for their “seemingly soulless violence,” as Seitz puts it, is no easy feat. Especially impressive as the characters do gradually reveal compassion and feeling as the film winds up to the climax.
Where I was seeing skill, however, Seitz saw wasted talents: “In later scenes in which Michael and Daisy forge a weird yet affecting father and daughter-type relationship, one can glimpse a more direct and powerful film fighting to get out, and failing”. This reviewer recognized that Fletcher’s film “doesn’t lack for conviction. Everything about “Violet & Daisy” bespeaks certainty of vision”. Still, at the end of it all, the movie left Seitz feeling unfulfilled, unresolved, and unimpressed. I too felt some of this. Many questions raised by the movie (How did these girls ever end up assassins in the first place?) are left largely unanswered. It almost feels like an episode set in another universe, and all we got was a glimpse of one memorable incident. Without the necessary context, it can be hard to connect enough to consider the film a success overall.
The Moral Problem
What is missing from the reviews I’ve read, is the plot point that sealed the movie for me. Violet and Daisy’s latest target is so unusual, not because of Michael’s quiet demeanor and lack of armed defense. Michael explains that he robbed a kingpin specifically because he knew it would result in a contract for his head. You see, he wants to die. This revelation throws Violet and Daisy so wildly off their usual course of murder-business, because suddenly they’ve found themselves aiding suicide. The morality of the circumstance has shifted to an apparently gray area for the assassins. This is not what they signed up for. Whatever cult they may or may not belong to apparently didn’t provide a chapter on “What to do if your target reveals they planned an elaborate theft in an attempt to get himself killed.”
Violet resists the curve ball, and tries not to lose focus of the mission’s objective. She doesn’t want to rock the boat, but Daisy is sucked in by Michael’s story. It is telling that Daisy is the one to bond with Michael, because she is the new girl to this way of life. Violet, the time-tested professional, proves herself comparatively cynical about her work. Keep your head down, and do your job. Regardless of Fletcher’s style, the moral dilemma at the crux of the story is still engaging. At the end of the day, its thought-provoking and memorable, and enough for me to rate the movie an 8/10.
Conclusion
Geoffrey S. Fletcher’s Violet & Daisy is an unforgettable ride, marred only somewhat by its vague setting and universe building. It tackled an unexpected moral quandary, only possible in its surreal setting. It kept me gripped the whole way through, and got me talking about it to friends and family. If you have a relaxed tolerance for violence, and patience for the flashback-heavy third act, this film is a must-watch.