THE PREMISE:

"​In a small town a solitary woman is haunted by voices that lead her to assassinate ill intended people and get away with it, until her last kill sucks her down a rabbit hole riddled with corruption, trafficking and visions from the beyond." 

OUR MOVIE REVIEW:

Saint Clare is competently made, which I realize may sound negative and condescending, but that’s not my intent. My expectations were low and when the movie began it appeared to veer off into a ravine (almost literally) of predictability and cheesiness, but then to my pleasant surprise it subverted those expectations with effective cinematography and amicable performance by its lead actor.

I’m not very familiar with Bella Thorne, but she does a fine job in her starring role of Clare Bleecker, a troubled high schooler (or college student? Not sure) who is plagued with visions and ghosts from her past. Thorne showcases a complex persona of a young girl who has experienced trauma firsthand, orphaned at a young age and struggling to find a place of belonging most of her life. She finds herself seeking vengeance as a vigilante protector of fellow young girls from evil, and repeatedly boasts herself as a servant and beacon of God who she implies endorses her serial killing tendencies in the name of the ‘greater good.’ This religious imagery is an interesting concept but far outstays its welcome and becomes redundant, as it evolves into a dull chant rather than a meaningful parable. 

The supporting cast includes a sidekick ghost mailman named Bob, who Clare accidentally killed when she was a child named. Bob serves more as a moral viewer than compass and attempts to replicate a similar dynamic to Dexter’s Harry but with less emotional impact and comic relief as the plot delves into darker, unpleasant territory, with little redemption for the audience at the film’s end. 

Ryan Phillipe stars as a ‘Michael-Meyers-slow -walk-detective-man. He plays a shell of a character and adds very little to the story. None of Clare’s classmates were particularly memorable and there is little to no character development to make you care about the characters or what happens to them, even when it’s quite unpleasant. 

Saint Clare’s sharp imagery featuring elaborate visions fueled by the main character’s psyche warrant audience intrigue, but the movie can’t seem to escape its ingrained melodramatic tendencies and a story that isn’t fully fleshed out. At times it seems like a muddled, monstrous hybrid of 21 Jump Street with a Lifetime Movie of the Week, True Crime Soap Opera.