Lucy Hale and Virginia Gardner star in Laura Murphy’s F Marry Kill, which is now on digital and playing in select theaters. This discussion will contain major spoilers.
When true-crime junkie Eva Vaugh (Lucy Hale) is shoved into the dating app world by her besties on her 30th birthday, she suddenly finds herself at the center of a real murder case. As new details about the murders are revealed on her favorite podcast, she realizes that one of the three men she’s dating could be the infamous “Swipe Right Killer” terrorizing the city! Now it’s up to Eva and her ride-or-die friends to figure out which date is a f-boy, a potential husband, or a killer in this whip-smart comedy-thriller.
“The best way to get some messages across sometimes, like social messaging, is by making people laugh and then, suddenly getting the messages across without them realizing, and I think that’s what I was excited about about this is there was actually a lot of very layered messaging and themes that you could sneak in with comedy,” The director shared. “There’s two sides to it. One is there’s real dangers out there and I think as women, we have to be aware of those dangers. Also, we’re aware of ourselves as women, we sometimes can get paranoid and non-stop consuming true crime content can feed into that paranoia. But the third part of that is, ‘Hey dudes, maybe be aware of how you could accidentally be creepy and not do that.’ It’s like, we’re in high heels and it’s hard to run away in very high heels, so maybe just don’t follow us too closely because we might think you’re a serial killer.”
“We had many conversations about, obviously, taking the themes really seriously. This is really happening out in the world, and it’s important to be aware and take care of your friends, but also, this is a movie. This is heightened reality, and we also, like you said, could get the messaging across with the comedy, but I think for me, it’s just really grounding the character and making sure my character really believed everything she was doing,” Hale expressed. “What I loved about the movie is the friendship between everyone. Her friends really care about her and that really is a takeaway for me, but outside of the mystery, the serial killer, I just loved that this was a woman who was really finding out who she was and what she wanted.”
“It’s such a topical kind of conversation to be having right now with dating apps and also with true crime podcasts,” Gardner continued to explain. “If I have a friend that’s going on a blind date, on a dating app date, or whatever, I have her share her location with me, which is a little Kelly of me too, but just to make sure that I know she’s safe and she’s okay. “
We talked about what they want the movie to say about modern dating, using the comedy-thriller genre, and the clues to that killer twist.
Watch my interview below:
