Good for Her: Ready or Not
Samara Weaving is done playing games in Ready or Not.
Nothing is scarier than dealing with your in-laws
NOTE: Good for Her movie reviews contain a spoiler section. If you want to skip it, don’t read the section labeled Good for Her.
What’s Ready or Not About?
Grace (Samara Weaving) is glowing on her wedding day. Not only is she marrying the man of her dreams, she’s finally getting the thing she’s always wanted — a family. Growing up in foster care, Grace dreamed of the day she could finally have a family of her own.
And she’s happy to join the Le Domas clan, even if they’re not as excited by her.
Patriarch Tony (Henry Czerny) thinks Grace is a gold digger. Tony’s sister Helene (Nicky Guadagni) keeps making weird declarations. Her new brother-in-law is drunk. But Grace’s groom Alex (Mark O'Brien) assures her that they’ll all love her after the wedding, as soon as she completes the family tradition of playing a game on her wedding night.
Only…when Grace chooses hide and seek, her dreams of a big family start turning into a nightmare. You see, when the Le Domas family plays hide and seek, there are deadly stakes. Alex promises he’ll help Grace escape before the rest of his family finds her, but if Grace wants to survive the game, she might have to do some seeking of her own.
Why’s Ready or Not Good?
On its surface, Ready or Not might seem like your typical slasher fare, but directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett managed to fuse satire, humor, and gore into a blissfully entertaining film. It’s rare to find social allegory in mass-market horror, but Ready or Not manages to be both a great popcorn movie and a razor-sharp commentary on the idle rich. Think of this film as an unholy combination of The Most Dangerous Game and The Rules of the Game.
There’s plenty of satire to go around. Most of the film focuses on the callous nature of the extremely wealthy and how generations of wealth seem to breed incompetence. When all your problems are solved for you, it’s hard to develop character. As a result, the Le Domas clan is in a sorry state, there’s the condescending patriarch Tony, who whines and throws tantrums, and his useless children. The sires of the Le Domas family range from depressed drunks to useless coke-snorting daddy’s girls. Their spouses cling on to the family money and tolerate the overgrown children they married. No one is competent at anything, they rely too heavily on their servants to do anything for themselves — even hunt a human sacrifice.
The serving staff is all dressed like they escaped a Robert Palmer video and get plucked off via the gross violent incompetence of the Le Domas family. Every time a maid falls, the family pauses, mostly because they don’t want to clean up the mess. Because of this, when Grace decides to fight back, it’s pretty easy to root for her.
Ready or Not is exactly what you need in a good satire — it’s mean and whip-smart as it shows you just how easily a grand family can collapse when things don’t go their way.
Honestly think how much more enjoyable The Great Gatsby would have been had Jay armed his guests and declared open season.
Good for Her Moment
Throughout the film, Grace clings to the idea that while his family is horrible, Alex is the exception. She’s half right. There’s one Le Domas child who doesn’t want to go through with the slaughter, her drunken brother-in-law Daniel (Adam Brody). So when she finally gets a chance, she gleefully watches as each of the Le Domas family members dies. When Alex begs her forgiveness, Grace tosses him back his ring. She doesn’t need him or any part of this family. Then he explodes and Grace goes for a smoke.
Sure her wedding night was a bust, but she escapes with her life and dignity intact.
Verdict
Hilarious and filled with gore, Ready or Not is a born crowd-pleaser. Show this at a Halloween party and see if you don’t all end up cheering for Grace as she fights off the idle rich.
