by Austen Terry, Contributing Writer
Every decade seems to have a teen comedy that tries to define a generation, whether it’s Fast Times at Rigemont High, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Clueless, 10 Things I Hate About You, Bring It On, or Mean Girls. Most of these also contain the plot point of one main character trying to convince another main character to do something they don’t want to do. A running theme is also a girl trying to make an unpopular girl into the new “It Girl.” Well all of these are true for the new 20th Century Studios film, Darby and the Dead. This film brings those themes in, but with one slight twist: the main protagonist Darby can see dead people. The film brings together several talented and likable actors to tell this story, but does it live up to any of the other teen comedy films it seems to steal from?
Darby and the Dead tells the story of Darby Harper (Riele Downs), who after an accident as a child, comes away with the ability to see dead people. So Darby takes The Ghost Whisperer approach and decides to help the ghost cross over. By the time of her junior year, she has isolated herself. She’s more friends with her ghost and the audience through fourth wall breaks than she is with the living people in her life. At her high school, Fredrick Douglas High School, she is an outcast picked on by Queen Bee Capri (Auli’i Cravalho) and her posse, Taylor (Kylie Liya Page), Piper (Nicole Maines), Bree (Genneya Walton), until Capri is accidentally electrocuted and dies. Capri then stalks Darby, and the only way she will move on is for Darby to become popular and convince her friends to throw her sweet 17 birthday party in her honor. Sounds a bit convoluted? That’s because it is. The only way Capri will crossover is if this party is the banger of the year, and when things start to not go her way, she makes things worse for everyone involved. Darby also juggles the stress of trying to figure out how she feels about two guys in the story: new kid Alex (Chosen Jacobs) and James (Asher Angel).
Director Silas Howard brings Becca Greene’s screenplay based off and Wenonah Wilms’ story to the small screen for us. Theres some decent work here, but a lot of the actors and characters feel cut off at the legs. The story, though fine, doesn’t seem to have consulted with the younger generation. It feels like they watched how Gen Z talks and acts on TikTok and pulled dialogue from there. The story is definitely a mix between better films like Clueless, Mean Girls, or Bring It On, but in the end, I would rather be watching those movies instead. That’s not to say Darby doesn’t have heart, or that it’s not redeemable. It’s just that there’s really no new territory here, and it shows. Almost every actor involved has been phenomenal in other things, but here, they feellike they are just going through the motions. Cravalho was the voice of Moana, Jacobs was Mike in the recent It movies, Maines was Nia Nal of Supergirl, and Angel is Billy Batson from Shazam. All four have one thing in common: their characters feel held back. Wayne Knight and Tony Danza show up as ghosts, and even these great comedic actors feel stunted.
Downs works well with all her costars — she is probably the only good thing about this movie. Downs and Jacobs have a really good rapport, and you are hoping by the end they are together. Angel just being there to sing and be the boyfriend of Capri makes it painfully obvious he isn’t in more of the film because he was probably busy. Maines is the reason this movie even came across my feed, and she just feels left on the sidelines throughout the entire movie. She seems to just be there to say a quippy one-liner, before going back to her phone.
I won’t just hate on this movie, though; I will praise it. There’s a scene where they even acknowledge that Maines’ character is transgender, and it’s played in the best way possible. She states she is trans, but it isn’t the only thing about her character. It’s even revealed in a very comedic way, too. Taylor asks Piper if she has a tampon, and Piper just simply replies, “still trans.” Downs and Cravalho even play well together, but as someone who was bullied a lot, I would hate to be in Darby’s shoes with this one. She is being stalked literally by her own bully.
Darby and the Dead is okay at best. While few and far between, it still has its moments, and I still feel it’s worth a watch. It is very cheesy and seems dated even though it’s geared toward Gen Z. If you have teenagers, it wouldn’t be a terrible film to watch with them. The end message of, being who you are is better than being who everyone tells you to be is there, but there are better films that deliver this same message. If given more time to breathe or grow, maybe this film would have been better. Unfortunately, it just falls flat.
Score: 5/10
Darby and the Dead is currently streaming on Hulu
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