Shady

And once again, we dip our toes into the waters of thrillers with ambiguously close female friendships. Yep, that’s a whole-ass subgenre. And good news! Shady is one of the better entries in it.

Shady is about a relationship between two teenage girls. Misa is a loner whose classmates bully her. Her main interest is in animals she keeps at home and school. Then, Izumi enters her life. Izumi is pretty and outgoing. So, Misa is thrilled to have her as a friend. This is despite some early warnings of Izumi being manipulative. Izumi grows more manipulative and abusive over time while maintaining power over Misa. This culminates in a third act where it shows that Izumi has something to do with their missing classmate, Aya.

Shady walks the line in terms of what counts as a queer relationship versus intense friendship. The queerness is relegated to two scenes. One where Izumi pins down Misa and kisses her and another where Izumi performs oral sex on Misa while giving her a pedicure. You know, #just girly things. There’s also a question of consent here. Misa never tells Izumi no in these moments but she never says yes either. The sexual element of this relationship is a bit one sided. Izumi is also definitely using it as a tool of control and manipulation than out of an actual desire.

Romantic or not, this is a really engaging and awful relationship to watch. From very early on, you can see how easy it is for Misa to be manipulated through her loneliness. And then Izumi comes along and does exactly that. This is a thriller so it’s not the most sensitive portrait of an abusive relationship. But within that genre framework, it’s really successful. There is a sense of genuine dread that Misa and the audience feels when Izumi shows up being outwardly cheerful and friendly. It really does show the control and fear that an abusive person can hold over their victim.

Izumi is a pretty great thriller villain. For starters, the film never suggests she’s any sort of mentally ill, she’s just awful and manipulative. Izumi is an evil genius in training. Her ability to control the pain and chaos around her is frankly, pretty impressive. She’s not only scary but believable in what she pulls off. The stakes of this movie are pretty low; the lead characters are teens. What Shady has successfully done is take negative traits of a teenager, throw just a dash of evil genius in there to create a character who is more extreme than you’d see in real life but not completely outside the realm of believability. Actually, I’d like to see some sort of Freddy vs Jason crossover for burgeoning teen sociopaths. Izumi and Do-Hee from A Girl At My Door have to fight for some reason.

Shady is like baby’s first Audition. And I’m fine with that because I’m too scared to watch Audition. Izumi is a great thriller villain. In addition to a great antagonist, Shady is successful at cultivating an air of mounting dread and helplessness. You worry for Misa and you do fear what Izumi is going to do next. All in all, Shady is a successful thriller about an abusive relationship that toes the line of being friendship or something more.

Overall rating: 6.5/10

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