Jane (2022) Review
Jane (2022) Review
Seemingly perfect and incredibly ambitious high school senior Olivia (Madelaine Petsch) struggles with grief and anxiety following her best friend Jane’s (Chloe Yu) suicide. Now she is consumed by her ambition to get into the prestigious and highly competitive Stanford. But alarm bells start to ring when new girl Camille (Nina Bloomgarden – Fatherhood) arrives and threatens her place on the debate team… which could scupper her entire future.
Reconnecting with old friend Izzy – played by Chlöe Bailey from the successful five-time Grammy-nominated sibling R&B group Chlöe x Halle – the two decide to dig up dirt on Camille and when they discover they can access Jane’s old social media profile, they use it to wreak havoc on anyone and everyone who stands in their way.
What starts out as seemingly innocent taunting quickly descends into something far more sinister. Principal Rhodes – deftly played by Academy-Award® winning actor Melissa Leo – attempts to help Olivia, but as she experiences increasingly frightening panic attacks, things spiral out of control… and she is forced to confront her darkest impulses. Can she stop the destruction… before it goes too far?
JANE starts off with a warning that what we are about to watch contains depictions of violence and suicide. What it should be warning you about is that director Sabrina Jaglom’s amalgamation of key elements from both HEATHERS and ELECTION is populated with people that are difficult to warm to and that it consequently makes for a tough unlikeable watch.
Whereas watching people be nasty to others works better when delivered in as a dark comedy format, as with the aforementioned HEATHERS and ELECTION, with JANE it leaves everything dangling with no hook, after all, presented without dark humour this is just about nasty people doing nasty things to other people simply for the sake of being nasty. It’s well-made, it’s well-acted but it wasn’t to my liking. However, it’s receiving wonderful reviews elsewhere so perhaps it’s just me.
TRAILER
