Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
Big Little Lies is excellent television, but with only two seasons — and no announced plan for a third — you most likely have a Monterey-sized hole in your TV schedule. Good news, then: if female-led murder dramas are your jam (and how could they not be?), you need to check out the new movie Ride or Die on Netflix.
It’s pretty common knowledge that most people watched HBO’s hit series for two things in particular: Nicole Kidman; and Nicole Kidman’s very fancy cardigans. It also helps that these affectionately titled, “hot, rich mom” actors have collectively garnered more Emmy, Golden Globe, and Academy Awards than basically any TV cast in history, even if you don’t count Meryl Streep.
Netflix’s new psychological thriller doesn’t have the star power (or the cardigans), but it does have Big Little Lies‘ female loyalty to the point of murder, with a one, big twist: a queer love story at the center. The one thing missing from Big Little Lies? Queer representation. For a show that has cemented itself so deeply within LGBTQ+ iconography, BLL is surprisingly lacking in this area. Luckily, Netflix is raising HBO one, and filling that void.
Ride or Die is a Japanese psychological thriller that offers the strong female leads, and the murderous revenge arc for a battered wife that characterized Big Little Lies, but also weaves in a lesbian love story between its protagonists. The film is a live-action adaptation of Ching Nakamura’s manga series, Gunjō. It follows Rei Nagasawa (Kiko Mizuhara), a 20-something who discovers that an old classmate Nanae (Honami Sato), is trapped in an abusive marriage. Rei plots to murder Nanae’s husband and declare her love for Nanae. With the abuser dead, and blood on fiercely loyal Rei’s hands, the story quickly becomes reminiscent of Big Little Lies twisty plot, with less glitz and more romance.
The complex moral implications of the act, like the analogous murder in Big Little Lies, drive the plot, as well as the precarious unfolding of Rei and Nanae’s relationship. If you, like the rest of the world, are distraught over the uncertain future of Big Little Lies Season 3, Ride or Die will satisfy your indulgent, murderous mom fix in the meantime. I can’t promise this film will win as much critical acclaim, but it will absolutely be fun to watch.
