The Misadventures of Mistress Maneater

I thoroughly enjoyed this indie-romantic-action comedy. Why? It's easier to explain when I discuss reasons I don't enjoy films categorized similarly.

Camp vs Cringe: There is nothing worse than secondhand embarrassment when watching a comedy. I will quickly give up on a film if it becomes cringey rather than funny. Mistress Maneater is definitely over the top and troupe-y at times, but they were self aware enough to stay firmly in the camp category. There was one moment in particular that I howled with laughter due to the subversion of expectations.

The audience is treated as intelligent: I will be the first to say, I hate comedies that are solely low-brow/gross out style. Mistress Maneater has elements of art history, religion, and lesser spoken about world history/events framing the story. And it's delivered in a way that assumes the audience doesn't need their hands held to understand it. It grounded many of the character motivations in a broader reality, which was appreciated.

Foreign language: I happened to watch this with a friend who is a native Russian speaker. He confirmed that while some of the accents were a bit off (and 1 spot on), the dialog was actually Russian instead of "film Russian" - a common complaint for him. Many major studio films do not make the effort, so kudos for making the effort!

Is this the best film of 2020? Of course not - it wasn't trying to be. It's a fun romp! And in 2020, something to just enjoy is very welcome.

The Misadventures of Mistress Maneater is a new release indie that I discovered on Prime. The bold plot has elements that feel a bit like a throwback to films I loved -- part comedy, drama, caper, and romance. Our lead has 30 days to pay back her debt and is forced to extort a priest when she discovers his hidden masterpiece. The film may have some understandable indie imperfections, but it's a solid effort and I really liked the performances of the lead actress, Lorissa Julianus I believe. Worth a watch for appreciators of indie film.

The Misadventures of Mistress Maneater is a solid, well acted film that is very effective. Although I think the movie could have been a bit shorter overall, the characters are unique, and it turned out to have more emotion than I expected which made for a powerful film. The cinematography was excellent along with the writing. Check it out.

I sat down to watch the 2020 movie "The Misadventures of Mistress Maneater" in 2021, without ever having heard about it. But the title of the movie and the synopsis made it seem like a movie that could be interesting.

Turns out that "The Misadventures of Mistress Maneater" was an incredibly slow paced and monotonous movie. It was a movie that offered very little in terms of proper entertainment value for me.

And it was a shame, because the concept idea behind the movie was definitely interesting. But the execution and transition from script papers to screen just didn't fare all that well.

This is definitely not a movie that I will recommend you sit down to watch as a first choice of movie for an evening, because the movie just fell short of really being interesting. Nor is it a movie that I will ever be returning to watch a second time, as it was painful to get through it the first time around.

The characters in the movie were, for the most parts, adequate. It wasn't a character gallery that overly prompted me, as a viewer, to take a particular liking or anything to any of them. Why? Well, simply because the characters were lacking background stories and motivation. It felt very superficial with the character that were milling about.

It should be noted, though, that they had put together a relatively good ensemble of actors and actresses to perform in the movie. Just a shame that they had so little to work with.

Ultimately then "The Misadventures of Mistress Maneater" just failed to be a well-rounded and fulfilling movie. My rating of this 2020 movie from writer Lorrisa Julianus and director C. J. Julianus lands on a less than mediocre four out of ten stars.

I won't lie, upon only half paying attention reading the plot of The Misadventures of Mistress Maneater. The words that stuck out were "Mafia" "Ex lover" "Extortion" "You have 30 days" "Embezzled Art collection" "MMA fighting priest" and of course "DOMINATRIX.... who plays by her own rules" ( I added that last part but it's true!!!) All those words that stuck out reading the summary, decided the trailer deserved my attention. To which it usually doesn't go past that point. ESPECIALLY With medium budget indie films. But they somehow made it to the next round. Renting It wasn't going to break the bank, and I said "hey! if I don't like it? I'll just turn it off, maybe try again later, or get done some of the work I need to do and have it as background noise... needless to say I'm behind on said work... I'm sorry! I really don't want to come across as arrogant or like my opinion is valid. Because we all know those who can't do anything become film critics. But I truly didn't think I was going to like this movie as much as I did. I'm going to buy the flick regardless, but honestly debating whether I should just but the digital or seek out a physical format of the movie (which is what I prefer, I don't know, owning a movie you're able to hold just means more to me.) The final chapter in the adventure of a movie and it's fate of either getting screened or reamed... well... it's writing a review... and here we are. Keep in mind, even if I think a movie is watchable, I usually won't bother writing a review. Note, even movies I think are terrible where my review is to purely warn others, even at that, the review is still a few short sentences of "do not do this to yourself! I watched it already! I was violated by this movie so you didn't have to be as well" There's so much that goes into why this movie deserves to be appreciated. The writing, the production, the acting, all done down to a T with precision and perfection. Obviously this movie didn't have a mega block buster budget, but given what they were given with what they were able to give. It was able to keep me invested without noticing it wasn't a Marvel Movie. Especially the acting. (When I watch movies I like to watch the background actors. It goes unnoticed when you're fixated on the characters the scene is centered on, as you normally should. But when you focus on the substance of whats going on behind the context, and the actors in the background who's characters don't have an existence beyond these few short moments. Who they are and how their story won't and doesn't mean anything. Are just a cog in the machine, an algorithm, their story isn't suppose to exist. Most of the time it causes you to find a glitch in the matrix and they look like background actors. But I didn't feel that way watching The Misadventures of Mistress Maneater. The acting is what truly made this film intriguing and able to be invested in. Especially and nothing without out Lorrissa Julianus. Lorrissa's performance bringing to life and portraying the character of Ava Moriarty, the story's main protagonist. Was not only believable, but give me butterflies, and at times give me butterflies. Let's just say if Ava was in my life? I would forget the safe word on purpose. I'm mostly familiar with Lorrissa's voice involved in a great deal of my favorite video games and small roles in movies like "Marked" "the husband" and "every 21 seconds". The charm, wittiness, and sense of humor her charisma projects on screen (not to mention absolutely gorgeous). She is truly underrated in her field and well on her way to becoming a DOMINATING force in the indie world. I highly recommend The Misadventures of Mistress Maneater. I laughed, I cried, I fell in love...