Do Revenge (2022): A Mirror Named Retribution, Addictive Desires, and the Subversion of Relationships

What is the most destructive form of healing chosen by wounded souls? Often, we volunteer to become perpetrators ourselves in an attempt to erase the scars inflicted by others. The Netflix film Do Revenge (2022) relentlessly tracks how human vengefulness and isolated egos indulge in and destroy one another behind a vibrant, pastel-toned high school aesthetic.

This work transcends a simple “cathartic” revenge play; it is a dangerous chronicle of two women, as similar as mirror images, racing forward fueled by each other’s deficiencies. For youths trapped in the prison of the “gaze of others,” the method chosen to break those bars eventually transforms into a cynical game that reflects their own selves.

🌿 Moments When This Film Sinks Deeply

• When the world feels unjust and a twisted desire to reorganize the social order in your own way surges within.
• When, after being betrayed by the one you trusted most, you face a chilling desire to repay your shame with another’s ruin.
• When you wish to sharply deconstruct the hypocrisy hidden beneath the power structures of glamorous social media and the vulnerability of the “projected self.”
• The reason to read to the end is to confirm the film’s chilling insights that force us to confront our own “perpetrator nature,” an aspect we strive to ignore, within a narrative that presents twist after twist.

🎞 Note Before Viewing

This work deals with somewhat high-intensity conflict subject matter, including the leak of a minor’s intimate video, substance use, and verbal abuse. However, these do not serve as mere provocative devices; they function as essential narrative tools to express the distorted power dynamics and psychological pressures of modern society.

🎬 Film Information

• Title: Do Revenge (2022)
• Director: Jennifer Kaytin Robinson
• Screenplay: Celeste Ballard, Jennifer Kaytin Robinson
• Country: USA
• Genre: Dark Comedy, Teen, Thriller
• Running Time: 118 minutes
• Platform: Netflix
• Cast: Camila Mendes, Maya Hawke, Austin Abrams, Rish Shah

📖 Do Revenge Synopsis: A Dangerous Trade Between a Fallen Queen and a Transfer Student [No Spoilers]

At Rosehill, an elite private high school in Miami, Drea (Camila Mendes)—once a scholarship student and the perfect “Queen Bee”—is socially buried overnight after an intimate video is leaked by her boyfriend, Max (Austin Abrams). Her friends turn their backs and her reputation hits rock bottom, yet Max, the suspected perpetrator, continues to thrive while maintaining his power on campus. During a summer filled with resentment and rage, Drea happens to meet a transfer student, Eleanor (Maya Hawke).

Eleanor shares a painful memory of her own life being ruined years ago after a “forced kiss” rumor was spread by Carissa, a former friend of Drea. Identifying their common pain, the two devise an extraordinary plan to exact revenge on each other’s enemies. Drea transforms Eleanor into a trendy “it-girl” to infiltrate Max’s inner circle, while Drea approaches Carissa to find her Achilles’ heel. Their collaboration, initiated under calculated schemes, begins to unfold into a massive exposé that shakes the entire school, opening the door to unexpected truths.

🎭 Subverted Solidarity of Mirror Twins: The Psychological Mechanism of Drea and Eleanor

The core of Do Revenge lies in the process of the two protagonists using each other as personas to expand their own egos. Drea is a character who dreams of strictly calculated social success, while Eleanor positions herself as the marginalized victim behind that success. However, as the plot progresses, the boundary between the two becomes blurred.

As Eleanor replaces Drea’s position and develops a taste for power during the revenge process, the audience witnesses how power contaminates the essence of a human being. Drea sees her past projected in the monster (Eleanor) she created, and Eleanor utilizes the position of the victim as a tool for acquiring power. Their relationship is not simple friendship; it is like a double-edged sword that fills each other’s voids while simultaneously stabbing at their most painful spots.

💊 Poison and Hypocrisy Hidden in Mise-en-scène: Deconstruction and Recomposition of the Teen Genre

Director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson borrows the grammar of 90s teen movies but twists them with a contemporary perspective. The pastel-toned uniforms and glamorous parties are perfect camouflages for the sociopathic tendencies lurking within the characters. The depiction of “toxic masculinity masquerading as woke,” represented by the character Max, is particularly excellent.

Max’s pretense—claiming to love art and support feminism while exploiting women’s achievements and leaking videos behind their backs—symbolizes the hypocrisy of the modern social media era. The film adds coarse brushstrokes of drugs, hacking, and gaslighting onto this colorful canvas, exposing how the elite youth culture we envy is a fragile sandcastle.

🔎 Reinterpretation of the Ending — A Strange Union Blossoming Over Ruined Relationships

The film’s conclusion does not stop at the simple gratification of seeing a villain punished. The scene where Drea and Eleanor drive onto the freeway, leaving behind Yale admissions and social prestige after Max’s fall, shows the true essence of revenge as intended by this film.

Ultimately, what they destroyed was not just the perpetrator Max, but their own twisted egos that had struggled to survive within that system. Drea liberates herself from the gaze of others by giving up the symbolic trophy of Yale, and Eleanor casts off her former name, “Nosey Nora,” which had been the fuel for her rage. Their relationship passes through the cracks that once threatened to destroy one another, reaching a stage of complete understanding only after witnessing each other’s ugliest sides.

The revenge of Drea and Eleanor is a rite of growth that transcends the downfall of another, witnessing and accepting each other’s wounded selves.

❓ Considerations on the Ambiguity of the Ending and Narrative Structure

Q: Is the process of the two joining hands again after Eleanor’s identity reveal too contrived?

A: Some viewers question the progression where Drea so easily forgives Eleanor, who intended to destroy her. However, this must be understood within the work’s aesthetic context. Drea discovers her own past perpetrator nature within Eleanor’s malice. In other words, forgiving Eleanor is directly linked to the act of facing and apologizing to her past self. The unrealistically fast reconciliation appears to be a directorial choice to emphasize the thematic consciousness of psychological integration rather than realistic probability.

Q: What about the criticism that Max’s downfall happens too instantaneously, feeling anticlimactic?

A: The character of Max symbolizes “systemic hypocrisy” rather than an individual. The reason his fall feels empty is that the power he held was nothing more than a substanceless “image.” The film criticizes the volatility of mass media by showing the fickleness of the followers who sustained him, rather than Max’s own greatness. This direction serves as an intended device to provide the audience with catharsis while simultaneously reminding them of the vulnerability of the power we worship.

✨ Do Revenge: A Sprint Through the Hell of Others to Reach Oneself

Do Revenge suggests that what remains at the end of vengeance may be liberation rather than futility. The sight of these two women rejecting the frames of “victim” or “perpetrator” set by society, embracing even their own ugliness as they move forward, presents a new possibility for modern solidarity. Their journey, discovering one another through a hatred deeper than love, paradoxically demonstrates how painful and fierce the process of finding one’s true self must be.

True revenge is not about crushing the perpetrator; it is a declaration of independence, completely separating one’s daily life from the wounds they left behind.

🗨 Silence or Exposure in Relationships: What Is Your Choice?

When the person closest to you uses your secrets as a weapon to stifle you, would you defend yourself by exposing those secrets to the world first, or would you remain silent until the end while designing that person’s ruin from behind?

Confronted with the insight that “We are inevitably the villain to someone,” I wonder where your “last line of defense in friendship” lies.

💜 Violet Screen Curation: Other Dangerous Alliances of Women

• Bad Sisters (2022 / Apple TV+): A tight-knit and lethal collaboration of five sisters surrounding a man’s death. If the revenge in Do Revenge is the heat of youth, this work is a chilling black comedy about the survival of mature women.
• The Favourite (2018 / Disney+): A fierce power struggle between two women who exploit and seduce each other to seize authority. A masterpiece that must be seen if you wish to explore the dynamics of relationships intertwined with status and desire.