Unto each cinema generation, a tale of star-crossed lovers travelling across America committing crimes, is born. True Romance and Natural Born Killers are just two films that fit within that mantle, but both are rather dated for today’s young audiences. Enter Infamous, a film that takes the Bonnie and Clyde formula, and gives it a social media makeover. Bella Thorne (Midnight Sun) stars as Arielle, a young Florida woman with one aim in life – to become famous. After meeting and falling in love with ex-con Dean (Jake Manley – Netflix’ The Order), she is presented with the perfect opportunity to achieve this goal. After an altercation at home, the pair find themselves on the run. Needing money to continue their flight, they begin robbing their way across the South of America. Arielle begins recording their criminal activities, and it’s not long before they’re a viral sensation.
Although True Romance and Natural Born Killers both fall within the same subset of cinema, they have wildly different portrayals of the lead characters and their response to being criminals. In True Romance, Clarence and Alabama become criminals almost by accident and see selling the drugs they have possession of as a way out of their dead-end jobs. On the flip side, Natural Born Killers’ Mickey and Mallory fully embrace their criminality, happily murdering their way across America, and seemingly thriving on the media attention lashed upon them. Infamous falls somewhere in-between the two. They fall into their criminal activities like the Worley’s, but then succumb to the media attention and thrill of breaking the law like the Knox’s. What all three films share, is their central love stories. Here, the romance is tender and tempestuous, passionate and all-consuming.
Given the reliance on the love element, it’s key to cast the right couple, and in Thorne and Manley, Caldwell has found Alabama and Clarence 2.0. They’re not complete carbon copies of Tony Scott’s beloved pair; Arielle for example, is way more conniving than Alabama, and Dean is much more the strong silent type than chatterbox Clarence. Yet, both actors manage to channel the essence that made True Romance’s characters so special. Thorne and Manley also look and work great together; their chemistry generated on-screen feels authentic. Add to that the fact that they’re both incredibly good-looking human specimens, and you have all the ingredients for a story that audiences want to invest in.
The social media component injects a nice little commentary on how it drives us to do things that we wouldn’t ordinarily do. Arielle’s desire to be famous is one that a lot of young people appear to share these days. There is a whole generation growing up believing that becoming a Vlogger or Influencer is as legitimate a career as being a lawyer or scientist. The reality of course is that it’s incredibly difficult to become successful on the online forum, and even harder to maintain a viewership once one has been generated. This is reflected in the film through Arielle’s debilitating need to constantly update new videos; the longer she leaves it between uploads, the more followers they lose. The addiction to maintain her status is the main cause of conflict within the Arielle and Jake relationship, as Jake has no interest in social platforms. It’s an argument that many will know intimately, though hopefully in not quite the same setting.
As with any film targeted at a younger audience, Infamous is full of bright vibrant neon’s, and a pulsating soundtrack and score. The costuming is also on-point; the pair are given a modern hyper-stylised criminal chic wardrobe. They have an assortment of face masks – rather apt in the current climate – and Arielle models a sea of colourful wigs, whilst their clothes emulate summer trailer-trash couture. The aesthetic is clearly trying everything it can to appear cool, and for the most part, it comes off as pretty slick. The road movie element means that we get to see a lot of that dusty desert wasteland America, and it’s captured in such a way that at times it feels as though you can feel the heat coming off of the screen. A big chunk of the movie is also set at night – the best time to commit crimes – and the aforementioned neon lights bring the nightscapes to life in a beautiful fashion. Despite this brilliance, the film, like social media, unfortunately feels a little hollow at times. As invested in Dean as Arielle appears outwardly, you can’t help but feel that her infatuation with being famous has numbed her to any real emotions. There are also occasions where the film suffers from the classic style over substance trope.
Written and directed by Joshua Caldwell, Infamous’ social media slant is a little like re-painting the skirting-boards without treating it properly first; the new gloss gives a lovely new shine, but underneath there’s still the tired old wood. As shiny and new as the story professes to be, it still falls into the same narrative beats of it ancestors, meaning anyone familiar with other films of the same ilk will undoubtedly guess where the story is headed within the opening moments. For the new modern audience whom may not be accustomed to these other films, Infamous will be something crazy and different to what they’ve seen before, and will likely send them off in search of the films that it is trying to emulate.
Infamous
Summary
A hyper-stylish social media twist on the Bonnie and Clyde story, grounded by great performances from its young leads.
