NOW IN THEATERS! Chris McKay’s Renfield is not a perfect movie by any means. Yet, there’s a war waging within the film between the good elements of the film and the bad. Ultimately, you will decide who wins…which is a weird way to watch a movie.
Nicholas Hoult stars as the titular Renfield, the longsuffering man-servant to centuries-old Dracula (Nicolas Cage). While Dracula is recuperating in an abandoned insane asylum after an attack by a gang of Vampire Hunters, Renfield is at a co-dependents support group looking for victims for Dracula to feast on. The victims are not the attendees of the support group, but Renfield is more interested in their abusers. One of whom turns out to be a drug runner employed by the Lobo family led by Tedward (Ben Schwartz) and his mother, Bellafrancesca (Shohreh Aghdashloo).
Meanwhile, Awkwafina plays Rebecca, a traffic cop hellbent on finding her father’s killer, a high-ranking officer in her department. The problem is that corruption flows throughout the police department and its alliance with Bellafrancesca. Rebecca soon finds herself face-to-face with Tedward after investigating the massacre of his henchmen at the hands of Renfield. Ah…full circle.
“…Renfield is at a co-dependents support group looking for victims for Dracula to feast on.”
Renfield is obviously at the heart of this film. While attending the co-dependent support group, it would be a matter of time when Renfield realizes that he is in an abusive relationship with Dracula. Renfield is constantly being told that he would be nothing without Dracula…lost and alone, and that Dracula is the only one who truly loves and cares for Renfield. Wanting no more of this relationship, Renfield secretly tries to build a life of his own by getting an apartment, a new wardrobe, and finding friends…like Rebecca. Unfortunately, you can only hide your secret life from your abuser for so long.
As I mentioned from the start, there is a lot to love and hate about Renfield. I’ll start with the big one. Awkwafina is horribly miscast as Rebecca. There’s just no sugarcoating this. When she’s on the street in her police regalia, she looks like someone dressed as a cop for Halloween. The uniform looks too big on her, and the body armor looks too bulky. She never appears to have the presences or gravitas that a police officer needs in how she walks, enters a room gun in tow, or has the presence of a police officer. This is not a minor criticism. Her inability to embody the weight and magnitude of being an officer of the peace is noticeable. It’s not that she couldn’t ever play a cop in the movies, but it looks like she did zero training or research for this role.
