Electra Film Review: Luxurious Lies

In Electra, we follow a journalist who deceives a washed up rockstar into letting him and his girlfriend stay in his noble country house for the weekend.

They all quickly grow close, drinking wine together and having deep conversations over a candle lit dinner, like they’re old friends catching up. What Milo and Francesca are yet to realise is that Dylan and Lucy aren’t who they say they are, and their journalistic background was just a scheme to get close to the former illustrious rockstar. 

Dylan and Lucy have a plan, and getting that invitation to their secretive palazzo without asking puts them ahead. But there’s a continuous tonal shift throughout the film, which makes Electra feel jumpy. It’s marketed as a thriller, but never reaches a climax where you get to feel exhilarated. There’s a tonne of mystery and deceit between the characters, but we get a front row seat into their private conversations so we know who’s lying to each other, leaving none of this mystery to be unravelled to the audience. 

Electra, at times, feels like a voyeuristic movie. We’re spying on these characters from a hidden closet across the room, or waiting at the bottom of the dimly lit staircase listening in to every word of conversation. There’s one scene in particular where we’re placed in the doorway, with half the screen obscured with the door ajar, as Francesca and Lucy are dancing like no one’s watching, spinning and twirling around to the music. They then kiss, and we’re transported down the grand hall into the bathroom, where Milo and Dylan are sharing an intimate moment full of tears like we’re observing them from the cabinet. At the beginning, the story itself doesn’t necessarily feel like it should be that secretive, but by the end, there’s bloodshed, making it apparent why every minute feels like a sneaky ploy. 

Although Dylan and Lucy are meant to be a couple, and so are Milo and Francesca (albeit, they do reveal it’s an open relationship), it’s Lucy and Francesca who end up having the most chemistry. They share glances with each other right from the very start which continue throughout, like it’s a forbidden love. Maybe it’s all a part of the scheming plan from Lucy, but Francesca seems to genuinely like Lucy. Bakalova and Cowen are the standouts from Electra, giving us a romance plot the men in their retrospective couples couldn’t quite make believable enough. 

Not only does Electra mark Hala Matar’s feature debut, but it also makes her the first woman from Bahrain to release a feature film. Matar has previously worked on music videos, starring Kristen Stewart, Finn Wittrock and Suki Waterhouse, as well as commercials for high end brands such as Moncler, Louis Vuitton and Issey Miyake. It’s apparent the director has an eye for framing luxury to look as expensive as possible, so her shift from these ads to working on this feature can be seen by how gorgeously lavish the Italian palazzo looks where most of the runtime takes place. 

Electra is stylistically grand, with every shot feeling upscale. It’s the jolting narrative that switches from trying to be a thriller to some kind of insufficient romance, to even a heist movie and it just can’t get the balance right. The only essence of Saltburn is the visual aspect, a film which it continually seems to reference throughout the marketing of the movie. It doesn’t reach those highs of deceit, but maybe if it was purely described as a drama, rather than a thriller, it would be more accomplished in what it’s trying to give to the audience. Maybe it’s worth it for Bakalova’s performance alone, but as a whole, it often struggles to stay on track. 

Electra will be released in select US theaters and on demand on May 2, 2025.