As a filmmaker, Mitzi Peirone is a hero of mine, a woman unafraid of creating confronting works about messy, unruly women. Her feature film debut Braid was a psychedelic portrait of toxic female friendships, and her sophomore film, Saint Clare, which is out now from Quiver Distribution, is an angry evolution of her work. With Saint Clare, Peirone digs into vigilante justice and reclaiming bodily autonomy when no male figure will do anything. It’s a battle cry into our terrifying unknown, an unavoidable statement that women and others you perceive as weak are ready to fight back as hard (and as violently) as possible.
Clare (Bella Thorne) is a college student by day, but at night, she’s a vigilante killer, stalking and murdering perverted men who prey upon the women around her. But she isn’t acting alone, necessarily. She’s guided by strange voices in her head, particularly Mailman Bob (Frank Whaley), the ghost of one of her past victims, who tells her to go after and when. She works hard to try and balance her quiet, small-town life with her violent impulses, but one day, she uncovers a darker conspiracy unfolding in this little town as young women start disappearing.
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Saint Clare has the classic feeling of a small town mystery, almost Sharp Objects-like, if you need a mental comparison. But, instead of dripping in Southern Gothic dread, Peirone packs Saint Clare to the gills with kinetic action, chaotic violence, disgusting sex traffickers, and college students putting on a gender-swapped musical. It’s a dizzying experience, a bad trip that sucks you straight into the Wonderland from your nightmares. And while it doesn’t always work, there’s a dedication to the vision that’s incredibly admirable and messy, similar to our titular Saint Clare.
The biggest disconnect, though, comes in the marketing stating that Clare has dissociative identity disorder or schizophrenia, but in the film itself, it’s much less defined. Yes, she hears voices, but it feels hazier than a mental health diagnosis and a Dexter-like killer who operates with a code to keep everyone else around them safe. It feels like no one knew what to do with Saint Clare and slapped on some buzzwords to generate interest without really understanding how to market what unfolds onscreen.
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This isn’t just a story about a crazy girl killing men. It’s a story about a woman trying to ground herself in reality and find a place in the world, while also trying to save people and act like a real-world superhero. Clare’s screams are full of a rage so hot you can feel it in your chest, a scream that rips through the screen and hits each viewer like a knife to the heart. Then, there’s also a streak of dark humor that Peirone weaves throughout that gives Saint Clare almost a camp sensibility. Peirone has to strike a balance here to keep the story moving while also keeping it engaging from a character perspective.
Thankfully, Thorne is up to that challenge, weaponizing innocence perfectly as Clare, while also giving her a soft edge that feels both relatable yet indistinct, something that keeps her just an arm’s length away from the audience. It’s compelling, especially as Peirone and Thorne take us through the world from Clare’s perspective. The vibe feels almost like hanging out with your weird, cool friend and learning about them on the fly.
Shot in just 15 days, Peirone harnesses the chaos of an indie shooting schedule to imbue Saint Clare with a frenetic energy that feeds into the film’s charming messiness. Some parts of the story feel rushed and disjointed, but as a whole, the film is a triumph of indie genre filmmaking, delivering a painfully important story wrapped in a genre bow.
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