Why you should watch “The Lure”

This acidic fairytale is dripping in style and delivers a banging synth soundtrack. 

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By this point, The Little Mermaid has been done to death. Once Disney gets its claws into something, good luck trying to breathe any new life into it (RIP Star Wars). But a resurrection is exactly what Polish director Agnieszka Smoczynska achieves in her brilliant 2015 retelling: fresh, stylish, and seething with feminine energy, The Lure is a musical fairytale unlike any other.

Gold (Michalina Olszanska) and Silver (Marta Mazurek) are a pair of carnivorous mermaids harboring dreams of stardom. When a group of musicians shows up at their beach, the sisters’ first impulse is to feed. Soon however, they’re drawn into the seedy glamour of an alternate 1980s Poland. As the sisters’ star begins to rise, so too does their hunger: Silver for flesh, and Gold for the affections of the moody Mietek (Jakub Gierszal).

Along with the mesmerizing performances of the female leads, the film’s musical numbers and the dingy, neon-streaked sets are the real reason to watch. A scene in which Silver receives her human legs in a gruesome, low-tech transplant from a cadaver is a good example of the kind of twisted energy Smoczynska delivers throughout. The growing tension between the young mermaids is echoed in the contrast of land and sea, youthful ambition and fading stardom, universal fame versus unrequited love. 

Smoczynska’s feminist lens is unflinching, and the film’s ending is far from fairy-tale. If this is what it means to be part of our world, these little mermaids might have been better off staying under the sea. 

Stream The Lure on The Criterion Channel or Amazon Prime.

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