Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for Do Revenge.The Netflix film Do Revenge is a campy teen reimagining of Strangers on a Train. Two teen girls, Drea (Camila Mendes) and Eleanor (Maya Hawke), agree to exact revenge on each other’s tormentors, Drea’s being her ex-boyfriend and Eleanor’s being a girl who spread rumors about her being a predator. The film takes various twists and turns, as one would expect from a movie inspired by Alfred Hitchcock and Patricia Highsmith. But the reimagining of the classic story allows for room to grow, and it becomes not just a story of revenge, but a story about forgiveness, and a commentary on Generation Z’s struggles to decide who and what deserves forgiveness, and all the intricacies and gray areas that come up in those discussions.

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maya-hawke-do-revenge-feature A Worthy Reason for Revenge

The reason for Eleanor’s revenge is simple. Carrissa (Ava Capri), a girl she knew when she was younger, told everyone when they went to camp together years before that Eleanor was gay and that she tried to hold her down and kiss her. While Eleanor is gay, the characterization of her as a predator is not only hurtful but it completely ruins her reputation. Drea has a similar reason for revenge. Her ex-boyfriend, Max (Austin Abrams), leaked a topless video of her for the sole reason of embarrassing her. And when she slaps him out of anger, she is the one punished, while Max gets to walk away scot-free. Both girls have very real, rational desires for revenge.

Drea’s attempts for revenge against Max would work on almost anyone else. Drea is able to get Erica (Sophie Turner in a glorious cameo) sent to a rehab program pretty easily, and even though it took more planning, the way she exacts revenge against Carrissa works immediately, with no one challenging a thing. But Max has the privilege of being the school’s golden boy, a seemingly progressive, academically driven, and good-looking man who acts as the face of the school. So using his charm and privileges, he is able to sneak his way through with little to no damage to his reputation.

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Image via Netflix

Who Is Really Deserving of Revenge?

Eleanor’s target for revenge ends up being revealed to be Drea, not Carrissa, with Drea actually being the one who spread the rumor, while Carrissa’s only wrongdoing was abandoning Eleanor during her time of need. So Eleanor’s mastermind plan for revenge against Drea ends up taking out Carrissa as an (almost) innocent bystander. Meanwhile, Drea continuously shows herself to be a kind, empathetic friend to Eleanor, but that means nothing to Eleanor. Eleanor continues her deranged path to vengeance by revealing her true intentions and then torturing Drea and using her to torture her old friends. But Eleanor never allows Drea's obvious regret over what had happened to begin to atone for what she did.

This all mirrors the way young people approach misdoings in society. They find themselves faced with people doing bad things, and the murky situations that make up life, and take a hard line, black-and-white approach to it, seeking retribution for mistakes. And while some people truly do need to be made to atone through criminal charges or ostracization from society, others' “crimes” do not fit the bill. And so often the people who are more viciously punished are ones from more marginalized demographics, like Drea, who is a Latine woman. While people like Max, cisgender, straight, white men, tend to walk away with little to no effect on their reputation. For example, Max is able to squeak through a huge cheating scandal by re-characterizing his behavior as non-monogamy, which somehow works despite none of the girls involved knowing about this. In fact, his explanation only serves to make him more desirable to the various people in the school, making everyone feel like they have a chance to be able to date him.

Gen Z's Struggles With Forgiveness

Generation Z, as it’s so-called, is a generation struggling with forgiveness. They’re struggling with who to forgive, when to forgive, and why to forgive. And while the world does need to be a little more discerning about who gets to move on and who should be forced to deal with the ramifications of their actions, Gen Z tends to swing to the complete opposite side of the pendulum. Instead of granting everyone, deserving or not, across-the-board forgiveness, they tend to deem most if not everyone as needing to seriously atone, regardless of the severity of their misdoings.

Do Revenge shows the issues with addressing life like this. There are people in the film who have done seriously bad things, as opposed to people who do things that, while admittedly not great, don’t rise to the level of leaking a nude photo of someone without their consent. There’s a need for grace here, not towards people like Max who just try to dodge any sort of actual accountability and instead just drop general platitudes and unfulfilled promises. But someone like Drea, whose homophobic lies about Eleanor were truly horrible but she was able to become a better person and seems genuinely remorseful about it. She deserves to be allowed to move on without constantly being chastised and tortured about a mistake they made.

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Image via Netflix

How Do We Decide Who Deserves Forgiveness?

And these kinds of determinations are tough. Every individual person will have their own way of deciding what these would be, with great variances between each. But each extreme side of the pendulum, from granting clemency to any person who merely utters the words “I’m sorry” (or less), to the angry, embittered “cancelation” of anyone with even the slightest blemish on their reputation, is both wrong. In a culture already so divided, either type of behavior will serve only to cause more division, angering people who suffer at the hands of truly awful people, and alienating those whose misdoings do not fit the punishment.

The ending of Do Revenge shows the benefits of allowing people to grow and change. Eleanor is torturing Drea and using her to torture her former friends, but all it does is make herself miserable. Her own drive for revenge and retribution has alienated the girl she likes and has caused her to lose her one true friend. And even though Drea once did something truly horrible to Eleanor, she has grown and changed and has become a better person, while Eleanor’s obsession with revenge has caused her to stay stationary, only caring about how to solve this problem through anger. But once she allows Drea to apologize sincerely, and accepts, they are able to bring down Max together, a truly unremorseful individual who cares only about himself.

Do Revenge is, on the surface, a fun revenge film set in a candy-colored high school world. But when that layer is pulled back, it’s actually about a generation struggling with forgiveness, in a world where they feel out of control, grasping for any amount of control they can hold onto. It depicts the challenges that young people face in trying to decide who deserves forgiveness, when they deserve it, and why.