Borderline Starring Samara Weaving and Ray Nicholson Just Dropped, but Is It Worth-Watching?
Samara Weaving tries to escape Ray Nicholson in a thriller about the hardships of fan love.
The toxic and codependent relationship between fandom and star is a subject that is both inexhaustible and often self-perpetuating. In the 1980s, the avatar of all devoted fans was Annie, played by Kathy Bates in Rob Reiner's Misery.
In the 2020s, a new contender for the role of creepiest fan emerges: Duerson, played by Ray Nicholson in Borderline, a psychopath who hopes she will say "I do" and that the not-so-elegant courtship will end in a beautiful church ceremony.
What Is Borderline About?
Sofia (Samara Weaving) is a pop star with posters of her face plastered all over the city. Her mansion in the hills is surrounded by security guards, and after concerts NBA player Rod meets her at home.
Duerson is a delulu fan who ends up in the hospital after an unsuccessful assassination attempt, but, convinced of his desire to be reunited with his beloved, he escapes from the medical facility, finds a support group and sets out to meet his fiancée – it is fate, after all. Or is it?
Borderline Had a Lot of Potential…
After The Babysitter and Ready or Not, Samara Weaving became one of the main scream queens of the movie industry – the actress now tries not to stray too far from the horrors that made her famous.
Borderline promised to be a return to thrillers about survival within four walls – bloody, perky and angry. The director is Jimmy Warden – the screenwriter of the sequels to The Babysitter and Cocaine Bear and Samara's husband.
On the other side was a promising actor: Ray – the son of Jack Nicholson, a nepo-baby who shamelessly imitates the devilish facial expressions of his famous father – for example in Smile 2.
…But The Movie Wasted It
All introductions suggested a not very thoughtful, but dynamic slasher about a star who fights off the love of her fans.
However, the movie suffers from an uneven rhythm that ruins the charming idea. The dynamic of the cat-and-mouse game, multiplied by the acting, is more than half the success of the fights in a confined space.
Warden, on the other hand, tries to expand the story, taking Sophia behind the back of her responsible security guard and making Duerson just one of a gang of intruders, rather than a determined loner.
Borderline Doesn't Seem Like a Success, Even if You Consider It a B-Movie
Borderline could have been a successful B-movie with a biting commentary on stalking and fantasies that will never come true.
But the optics get lost in the transition from stalker to victim and back again, and the genre gags are drowned not in blood and fight choreography, but in plot twists that only lower the adrenaline level on screen.