Borderline (2025) Film Review: Crazy for You

Borderline toys with dark humor and delusion but never fully loses its mind, despite several standout moments and a scene-stealing turn from Alba Baptista.

The premise has promise. A prologue introduces us to Duerson (Ray Nicholson, Smile 2), a deranged stalker fixated on ’90s pop icon Sofia (Samara Weaving, Scream VI), and is remanded to a psychiatric hospital after he slashes his way past her bodyguard Dale (Eric Dane, Euphoria) to break into her vacant Los Angeles mansion. Jumping ahead a year, Dale is back on the job the same night Duerson breaks out of a psychiatric facility and crashes back into Sofia’s world with twisted ideas of love and matrimony. Now, Sofia must outmaneuver Duerson and his equally unhinged accomplice Penny (Alba Baptista, Amelia’s Children) before their twisted wedding plans play out.

Weaving plays Sofia with an air of Madonna meets Lady Gaga, minus the unmistakable X-factor that made those icons untouchable. Years of stardom have left her guarded, a necessary defense mechanism when fervent fans blur the boundaries between devotion and delusion. While Weaving’s performance is layered – elevating the role beyond a simple scream queen – she’s compensating for a character that, as written, lacks the depth necessary to make her fight for survival compelling. Perhaps her real-life connection to the material (she’s married to Warden) helped her find more in Sofia than the script offers, but even that can’t overcome the fact that Sofia is frustratingly reactive rather than proactive. For a movie built around a cat-and-mouse battle, that’s a major flaw.

Playing Duerson with the same mix of menace and cartoonish excess he brought to Novocaine, Nicholson feels like he’s acting in a completely different film. The performance is wildly theatrical, and that might have worked if Borderline had leaned fully into absurdity. However, Warden’s script never quite decides if it wants to be an over-the-top thrill ride or a gripping psychological battle. That indecision is perhaps why Dane’s role gets lost somewhere in the middle, along with Jimmie Fails as a Dennis Rodman-inspired basketball star Sofia once had on her bedroom bucket list.

Then there’s Penny. If Borderline has a secret weapon, it’s Baptista as Duerson’s unpredictable partner-in-crime, who delivers the film’s most electrifying performance. Volatile, calculating, and very funny, Baptista brings flashes of the same anarchic energy that Warden tapped into for Cocaine Bear. Whenever she is onscreen, Baptista’s character brings welcome chaos into scenes that might otherwise have felt formulaic, and her absence is noticeable whenever the story shifts focus.

Shot primarily in Vancouver with a handful of Los Angeles inserts, the film has a sleek but slightly impersonal feel. Even so, cinematographer Michael Alden Lloyd captures the shifting moods with precision. The score by Mondo Boys amplifies the tension but leaves room for a little loopy fun when called for. In scenes that play with time and visual perception, Joe Galdo’s editing adds an extra layer of polish to Borderline. And while its 94-minute runtime ensures it never overstays its welcome, it also prevents any real emotional investment from taking root.

The problem isn’t how the film looks, though; it’s how it feels. Part of that issue lies in Warden’s screenplay. Originally featured on the Black List (a collection of Hollywood’s most promising unproduced screenplays), it likely had a sharper edge on paper. But something was lost in translation. The final product flirts with commentary on ’90s celebrity culture and fan entitlement in the pre-digital age, but it never fully commits. For a stretch, it tries to balance itself out as a horror-comedy, including a deranged duet of Celine Dion’s “It’s All Coming Back to Me Now,” but these are too-brief glimpses of a much bolder film that never materializes.

Despite occasional narrative curveballs and unexpected humor, Borderline isn’t a total misfire but it does feel like a missed opportunity, especially considering all those involved behind the scenes. The film was produced by Margot Robbie’s LuckyChap production company, fueling the frequent comparisons between Robbie and Weaving (who are often mistaken for each other). It won’t feel like a waste of time, but those looking for a gripping celebrity-stalker thriller might be better off revisiting The Fan (the 1981 Lauren Bacall version, if you prefer your stalking on Broadway) or Ingrid Goes West. For now, Weaving’s fans may have to wait for the recently announced Ready or Not 2 to see if she finally gets the breakthrough vehicle she deserves.

Borderline will be released in US theatres and on digital platforms on March 14, 2025.