Home Movie Reviews Bad Behaviour Review: Englert’s Debut Is A Colossal Disappointment [Sundance]

Bad Behaviour had everything it needed to succeed, but the ridiculous script and fluctuating themes make it a dreadful experience in every sense.

Jennifer Connelly in Bad Behaviour

The examination of mother-daughter relationships has been a consistent theme throughout the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. From Birth/Rebirth, which scrutinized the extremes one would take for their child to Girl, which dissected overprotective parenthood, this year’s festival offered diverse storytelling with respect to motherhood. Alice Englert’s directorial debut, Bad Behaviour is another feature to add to that list. The dark comedy sees Jennifer Connelly as a co-dependent mother with an inability to manager her anger. Bad Behaviour had everything it needed to succeed, but the ridiculous script and fluctuating themes make it a dreadful experience in every sense.

Lucy (Connelly), a former child actress, seeks enlightenment from her spiritual leader, Elon Bello (Ben Whishaw). But before she joins him at a silent retreat in a beautiful mountain resort, Lucy informs her daughter Dylan (Alice Englert), a stunt person training for a dangerous fight scene. As she ventures off to the retreat, an ugly side to Lucy reveals itself in the most unfortunate way. To make matters worse, Lucy’s bad behavior reaches an astonishingly new low when she’s paired with a young influencer, Beverly (Dasha Nekrasova), with whom she must participate in a mother/daughter role-playing exercise.

Related: My Animal Review: Castel’s Steamy, Stylistic Debut Is Uneven [Sundance]

Englert’s feature debut is shockingly hollow and incoherent in the ideas it attempts to examine. The script particularly struggles to maintain focus on why the characters are the way they are without opting for extreme behavior and actions. For Connelly’s Lucy, it’s difficult to determine the causes for her outlandish outbursts until the film’s end. But even then, the script spends such little time providing adequate explanations that all the work established in its first two acts becomes irrelevant and flimsy. Connelly does all she can to convince viewers that this dark comedy is worth the watch. However, even her compelling performance cannot put back any life into this lackluster film.

As the film progresses, it begins to feel like there’s no true aim other than to rile up its viewers. It’s quite astounding, really, but Bad Behaviour is supposed to be a dark comedy that dissects the origin of Lucy’s toxic relationship with her daughter. However, there are very few laughs just as its commentary on mother/daughter relationships ceases to exist before it barely gets going. As a result of its aimless screenplay, the film comes off annoying more than anything. And with the runtime clocking in at a long 109 minutes due to taking its time to say anything remotely interesting, viewers may have trouble wanting to stay for its entirety.

There’s a moment in Bad Behaviour in which it feels as if a good film may emerge. Times when Connelly’s Lucy must self-reflect and share her learnings give insight to her internal struggles. Unfortunately, these moments never last long enough to give any modicum of coherence. Instead, the ridiculous storytelling and wonky dialogue overtake its high potential, resulting in its nonsensical showcase of anger management, introspection, and healing. One may be able to look past all these limitations if the majority of the film had been like the final 25 minutes. However, it comes a little too late and only solidifies that Englert’s debut is a missed opportunity.

Riddled with over-the-top sequences and annoying dialogue, Bad Behaviour is such a disappointment that it almost feels like a parody. Of what, one might ask? Of a bad movie. Perhaps, that’s the most difficult thing to conceptualize — that underneath this farfetched picture is something worth watching. Yet, there are intentional choices made to do everything but put forth a great movie. And despite a committed and great performance from Jennifer Connelly, the themes of co-dependency and toxicity within mother/daughter relationships were simply not executed well. It goes without saying, but this is one of the biggest disappointments in recent memory.

More: Landscape With Invisible Hand Review: Finley’s Alien Drama Is Unique [Sundance]

Bad Behaviour premiered at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival on January 21. The film is 109 minutes long and not yet rated.