Bad Behaviour Review: Dark, Disjointed Mother-Daughter Comedy Leans Into Oddness — and Jennifer Connelly's Starpower
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- The Downsides of Bad Behaviour
Bad Behaviour, by writer-director-star Alice Englert, explores the kinds of predicaments we find ourselves in when we dislike others for peculiar, often subconscious reasons. It could be that we see parts of ourselves that we don't like in them, or the person reminds us of someone we already know who we don't particularly like. While most of us would move on despite the disruption, this new dark comedy dives into what happens when these situations lead us to act drastically and lash out at the innocent person for no good reason.
Jennifer Connelly plays the lead character, Lucy, who may or may not find herself lashing out at certain people in this uniquely odd character study. It centers on a mother-daughter duo who have either tried or are trying to make it in the entertainment biz. Connelly is the mom a former child star, while her daughter, Dylan (Englert), is an eccentric stuntwoman who's out on location for a sort of fantasy movie shoot gone wrong. The end result will leave you pondering your own unique family dynamics, even if the film's impact isn't the most groundbreaking or balanced.
Bad Behaviour
3/5
Writer-director Alice Englert presents Bad Behaviour, a comedy-drama film starring Jennifer Connelly as a former child actress. Seeking enlightenment, Lucy (Connelly) heads to a retreat led by her guru, Elon (Ben Whishaw) to disconnect from the world and reconnect with herself. Before she starts, however, she reaches out to her daughter, who reveals that she's training for an incredibly dangerous scene in a movie she's in. Now completely distracted by worry, Lucy's weekend retreat will turn into a comedic nightmare.
- Release Date
- June 18, 2024
- Runtime
- 109 Minutes
- Producer
- Molly Hallam, Desray Armstrong
- Connelly and Englert offer a unique mother-daughter dynamic.
- Darkly funny, but also surprisingly heartfelt.
- The film is tonally jarring and uneven.
- An abrupt ending leaves a sour taste in your mouth.
Dueling Protagonists
As Englert notes in her director's statement, "Bad Behaviour is a valentine to adults who are still coming-of-age." Indeed, lashing out at a stranger simply because they remind you of someone else you don't like is a bit childish, one could argue, hence the "coming-of-age" element. This all goes down at a spiritual retreat on the outskirts of civilization, where Lucy is seeking enlightenment in her middle-aged era. The retreat is run by a charming, seemingly insightful lad whose name, of course, is Elon. He's played by Ben Whishaw, a role the famed English actor can play in his sleep, but he does it well, adding occasional bleak humor to this earnest attempt at thought-provoking cinema.
The mother-daughter premise means dueling protagonists, so the film often cuts between Lucy's outlandish retreat and Dylan's production escapade, which finds her getting a little too chummy with her supervisor, enjoying a few too many adult beverages, and having a little too much fun with her stunts. Her erratic "bad behavior" (hence the film's title) juxtaposed next to Lucy's own goings-on at her erratic retreat makes it clear that Dylan is ultimately a reflection or repeat of her mother's earlier years.
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Becoming Our Parents
Meanwhile, Whishaw's Elon — who may or may not be a fraud, by the way, as he sneaks off to puff cigarettes and snicker at his attendees behind their backs — is striking a nerve in Lucy, especially in connection with a hotshot guest who just arrived. Meet model and DJ, Beverly (Dasha Nekrasova), who ends up getting paired with Lucy for various role-playing exercises meant to expel certain emotions and secrets from your soul. Lucy sees bad parts of herself in Beverly, or maybe it's her own mom (who we never meet) she sees, and this goes back to the aforementioned theme of cycles of behavior.
Beverly rubs Lucy the wrong way, to the point that Lucy quite literally lashes out, gets thrown into the slammer, and assigned a public defense attorney (I May Destroy You co-star Karan Gill) who's a bit too charming for his own good, especially once they meet up with daughter Dylan who's now returned from her own failed adventure. It seems that every little side card that enters these ladies' lives might just turn into its own brand of chaos, sad to say.
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In real life, Englert has her own industry mom, two-time Oscar winner Jane Campion (The Piano, Power of the Dog) and she even has a fun little cameo as a doctor here. Similarly, acclaimed director Sofia Coppola once explored a Hollywood parent-child dynamic with her masterful 2010 film Somewhere, and it seems Englert is perhaps channeling a similar approach with her film and its fictionalized angle that may also speak about her own sort of upbringing tied to Tinseltown.
The Downsides of Bad Behaviour
The tone of Bad Behaviour is often overwhelming and jarring to a fault, throwing you into a disjointed whirl you're not always ready for, but it's clear Englert is growing more confident in her craft. It's always more rewarding when a director aims too high and falls a little short than when they execute the obvious. Let's not forget that Connelly is reliably solid, though there are times you might find yourself wishing she were pushed a bit further. After all, she's proven her chops time and time again.
From Gravitas Ventures, Bad Behaviour is now playing in theaters, on-demand, and on digital platforms like YouTube, Google Play, Fandango at Home, and on Prime Video through the link below:
Watch Bad Behaviour
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