I love movies. I live for that experience of falling into a different world, of being affected and moved by the events on screen. Every time the lights go down, I sit up a little straighter in my seat, my pulse quickens a bit, and I mentally prepare myself for the onslaught. In short, I just about dare the filmmakers to give me their all.

Be careful what you wish for.

Raw, written and directed by Julia Ducournau, made me wince. It made me cringe. It made my jaw drop, my eyes squint, and my knees draw up to my shoulders in delightful horror.

Raw gave me its all. And I’ve been obsessing over it ever since.

Garance Marillier plays Justine, a young woman off to veterinary school with the blessing of her idealistic parents. Their whole family is vegetarian and it’s an almost comically obvious bit of foreshadowing when a huge chunk of sausage is found in her mashed potatoes at lunch. Welcoming her at school (having been there for the past year) is her older sister, Alexia (Ella Rumpf) ready to show her the ropes, ease her transition, and join in on the (sometimes frighteningly violent) freshman hazing rituals.  When Justine is forced to eat raw meat, it awakens something inside her that turns her life around, upside-down, and inside-out.

Also along for the ride is Justine’s brusquely endearing gay roommate, a fellow freshman who endures the 3AM dorm room intrusions and the blood-soaked hazings right with her, but who turns his experiences outward instead of inward, reveling in passion and sex and drugs. The emotions between the two of them run hot and cold, and all kinds of tensions flare up, burn out, then burn even hotter and more fierce the further along they go.  And they go very very far together.

Yes, I’m purposefully being vague here.  No, I shan’t say any more, mon ami.  This movie works best if you go in as uninformed as possible. Don’t let anyone spoil anything.  Heck, you should probably even stop reading this review until you watch the movie. Go ahead, I’ll wait.

Okay. First-time feature film director Ducournau hits this out of the park, and right into the pit of your stomach.  I shouted out loud in shock and alarm more than once, and I’m not too proud to admit it.  Ducournau has a delicate touch, and the movie glides easily enough along at first as Justine goes to her veterinary classes, and to her drug-fueled parties, and to her eventual deflowering–all of which she kind of quietly muddles through with a doe-eyed innocence, meek and accepting and absorbing her surroundings.  It might be easy (and a bit lazy) to contrast both her sexual hunger and her…other hunger, and think that that’s all there is to this movie, a simple and simplistic tale of awakening. That’s where I assumed this was going, to a nice tidy stereotypical wrap-up with all the causes and effects present and accounted for.  

Oh, how naive I was, kids. That delicate touch of Ducournau’s soon becomes an insinuating accusing middle finger worming its way between your teeth, scraping the roof of your mouth,  and shoving itself down your throat. This movie is so much more profound and visceral and disturbing and bloody and, yes, touching than I could have ever imagined. I was blown away.  As Justine, Marillier is a marvel. Even as her journey gets darker and darker and more and more twisted, she is never unsympathetic and is always captivating. She holds our attention all the way down this rabbit hole, never letting go no matter how much we try to pull away from her grip.  

I’ve got to mention the special makeup effects by Olivier Afonso and Amelie Grossier, as well. They are horrifyingly effective, relentlessly graphic and realistic, and yet sparingly used.  Perhaps that’s what makes them so effective? I literally gasped at one of the gags, it was so well-done and, even more importantly, well-presented in the context of the scene.

Final thoughts? You should watch this movie. And you should maybe not eat anything for a little while.