The Cleanse is a dull film dramatizing romantic relationships through clunky pop-psychological metaphors and pitifully-failed attempts at humor. It seems to want to be social commentary on modern U.S.-Americans and our sense of severe social dislocation that leads us to retreat into narcissistic self-improvement as a salve for our broken, lonely psyches. But The Cleanse’s level of sophistication—which is very, very low—means that this effort flops. If the film has anything to say about our society at all, it is via elevating a menacing misogynist to the role of plucky hero.
The Cleanse follows Paul (Johnny Galecki), who is supposed to be a lovable-loser type who is down on his luck and in need of a change. Paul as a character type is familiar; probably the best example in recent screen culture is Adam Sandler’s Barry Egan from Paul Thomas Anderson’s brilliant Punch-Drunk Love. Unlike Barry, Paul here lacks dynamism, a backstory, a sense of genuine personhood or a definable character arc. Unlike Punch-Drunk Love, The Cleanse has no defined setting; it is deliberately set in an unnamed non-place, with lifeless lighting and nondescript backdrops as if it were a Marvel movie straight from an Atlanta parking lot. All the viewer knows, from one of the film’s many failed jokes, is that it is not New Jersey. Both choices—to render Paul as a bland, vapid loser and to set The Cleanse in an intentional nowhere—are odd, and they sabotage the film from the jump.
The setting also includes a non-time, before smartphones it seems, yet in a period where cleanses are popular junk-nutritional science. As such, Paul, who sleeps on his couch with his analog TV blaring, finds out about the cleanse, a potential life-changing retreat, through an infomercial while in a half-sentient stupor. It becomes his singular mission to be selected as one of the lucky few who get to participate. His desire to join the cleanse is redoubled when he meets Maggie (Anna Friel) at the initial audition meeting; he is immediately attracted to her.
From here, the film progresses in a predictable fashion. Paul and Maggie are selected for the cleanse, which starts with a hokey sense of foreboding (a promise the film does not really fulfill) that quickly turns to heavy-metaphor schlock. The cleansers drink a weird custom juice, throw up in their cabins in the night and from their vomit is born a horrifying monster that quickly grows into a cute-if-you-squint companion for each of the cleansers. The viewer guesses the truth about the monsters (because it is obvious) well before the characters themselves, who apparently are very stupid. Throughout the film’s second and third acts, there are hints of menace, but these never really come to anything. The Cleanse climaxes in a barely noticeable crescendo as the heroic former-loser achieves his wish fulfillment goals.
The Cleanse is troubling and not just low quality; some viewers love what they call “good” bad movies, but The Cleanse has additional baggage to match its lack of craft that prevents it from claiming that coveted designation. The problem is emphasized by the recent terrorist attack in Toronto and the barrage of vitriolic misogynist bile that has come out on social media (and even The New York Times!) in the aftermath. Paul is an “incel,” who creepily stalks Maggie and is so unrelenting in pursuing her that she finally gives in and talks to him. The Cleanse treats his dogged chase as praiseworthy and as its central narrative device; it is what allows Paul to cleanse his past and actualize himself in the present. This is horrible, violent and dangerous; men do not have the right to badger women into sleeping with them as part of their masculine self-journey into personal fulfillment. That The Cleanse suggests Paul is anything more than an entitled and threatening scourge—that as a straight white man he deserves to be the leading man in his own life story—condemns the film. It cannot even be a good bad movie.
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