What does it mean to be a star anymore? Something different from what it used to be. To be a star now might not mean that an actor must elevate the box office of every movie you are in front of the poster for. It might mean something else. We do not have a reliable monoculture anymore. We do have a trending and viral culture. To become viral, ingrained in the everyday language and spreadable topics of the internet, to walk that rarified air between movie stardom and internet fixation — this is the new way to be a star. Sydney Sweeney knows exactly what to do. Get in front of the camera. Get in front of several cameras. Have your breakthrough movies all released within one or two seasons. Make the press rounds. Make the internet obsessed. And now, she’s the most talked about starlet the Hollywood system has produced in many years.
Within that conversation, some strange storylines have emerged. That Sydney Sweeney is somehow the spokesperson for an Alternative Right. That her presence, as a woman with large breasts, seems to embody some counterpoint to the conversation of body positivity on the internet. These wild, totally ungrounded ideas began to populate the internet and then the funniest thing happened. Sydney Sweeney’s passion project, Immaculate, which she produces and stars in, came out, and it’s strictly an anti-religious article, not itself a destined cult horror movie but built upon the working pieces of old cult horror. It is knowing, reaching back into provocative cinema, and it re-centers the same statements as the movies that inspired it. And the funniest part of all is that these reactionary groups had another kneejerk reaction that within the space of a few weeks, a trusted film distributor like Neon had procured this Liberal Propaganda piece and programmed something against their wild politicization of women’s bodies.
That’s where Immaculate strikes at the right time and is the right film for this moment. It is about this commodification of women’s bodies, their utility for giving birth, and how religion has dogmatically created both this worshipful illusion of conception and this idea of shame, that birth is beautiful. Still, the body is sacred, and so birth without penetration is holy. But this time it doesn’t go that way. This time, it’s a very unholy process.
What’s refreshing about Immaculate is that it runs under an hour and a half and breezes right by. It is compulsive, watchable, and does not waste any time. It does, however, feel like not very much has happened in the movie, until the end, when it all happens, but that’s the cost of the lean and efficient filmmaking. For Sweeney’s part, she’s immaculate, and gives a straightforward performance that is exactly what the material calls for and no more and no less. The filmmaking itself, from the cinematography to the visual design go about the same way: it’s all serviceable and lends itself to the goal of the production. Not much fuss involved here, just a perfectly fine and viable little horror movie.
There’s a good space for this emergent middle-ground of filmmaking. These short horror movies that do what they say they’re going to do and get in and get out without any further fuss. It goes over just right in this case, with nothing particularly wrong about how the movie has been made, but also nothing especially notable that adds to the genre conventions the movie uses as a building block. Immaculate is an easy recommendation. You’re going to get exactly what you came for.