‘Darby and the Dead’ Review: Modern ‘Mean Girls’ Flickers With Potential

For the most part, Darby Harper’s life resembles that of other teenage protagonists of comedy-dramas past and present: She lives with a parent whose sole function is to impart critical lessons in brief one-liners; she is an outcast at her high school, a place of perplexing social mores and calcified cliques; and she wields her acerbic humor to study and judge the world around her. Unlike the typical main characters, however, Darby (Riele Downs) can talk to the dead.

In Silas Howard’s endearing but uneven film Darby and the Dead, the heroine parlays her sixth sense into a side gig. After school, from her bedroom turned office, Darby helps irresolute ghosts make peace with their death and cross definitively to the other side. Her clients skew older, and their requests — to amend relationships with children, to remind spouses of their love — tend to concern ending quarrels or assuaging guilt. When Darby’s best friend turned nemesis, Capri (Aul’i Cravalho), dies in a tragic electricity accident, the teen medium isn’t prepared for the effort required to help Capri leave purgatory.

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With a refreshingly diverse cast and a compelling premise, there’s a lot to appreciate about Darby and the Dead — even with its muddied execution. The film pays homage to landmark teen movies like Mean Girls and Heathers but isn’t afraid to forge its own path. Empowering friendships between women, the isolation of grief and refraining from judgment are just a few of the many major themes tackled with verve and humor. But in trying to do them all justice, Darby and the Dead relies on one too many clichéd turns to tie the story together and shortchanges some of the more interesting parts of this film streaming on Hulu.

The film gets off to a strong start with Darby, through a combination of voiceover and fourth-wall-breaking monologues, explaining her powers, her job and her terrible high-school reality. The punchy introduction gives Downs a chance to show off her command of the material; she’s a natural as a teen whose tough exterior masks a more sensitive side. Becca Greene, who wrote the screenplay based on a story by Wenonah Wilms, has given Darby a string of snappy jokes and zingy one-liners, some of which land better than others. 

Her character plays off Capri’s so well because the two teens are so different. Whereas Darby keeps to herself, Capri, captain of the cheerleading team, is the queen bee on campus. Her death unsettles the student body because unlike her cinematic predecessors, Capri peddled in kindness. She encourages people to try out for cheer, promoting it as a breeding ground for the contemporary girl boss; she remembers her teachers’ names; doles out compliments; and instead of dating the captain of the football team, she falls for the shy kid (Asher Angel), a former contestant on a national singing show.

Darby finds Capri’s earnestness inauthentic, so when the cheerleader, now a “deado” (an affectionate term Darby uses to refer to souls trapped in purgatory), asks her for help, the teen medium is not inclined to offer it. Darby’s other clients usually ask her to relay a simple message or two, while Capri wants the teen outcast to infiltrate her friend group and convince them to still throw her 17th birthday party. Why Capri still needs this gets some light exploration, but the rationale feels too flimsy for such an inventive premise. Darby, out of guilt, a sense of duty or some combination of both, concedes to the terrible plan. 

The girls team up and Darby undergoes a Mean Girls-style transformation. They practice backflips on the beach so Darby can make the cheer team; they revamp her wardrobe, replacing all-black ensembles with colorful vintage wares; and they curate Darby’s nonexistent social media presence. The makeover — both physical and digital — works, and in a couple of weeks Darby has gained the respect and fascination of her peers. With her popularity comes confidence, and Darby eventually betrays herself and Capri. 

Darby and the Dead abandons its more interesting threads at this point for a jaunt down more conventional avenues. Darby’s relationship to grief, one precipitated by the death of her mother when she was a child, and the teen’s tender friendship with an older deado (Wayne Knight) fall to the wayside as we watch her get lost in the allure of popularity. Other characters get shortchanged narratively (and by Darby herself), including Darby’s love interest and new kid at school, Alex (Sneakerella’s Chosen Jacobs), a character whose background deserved more than passing inquiry.

When the film recovers its footing in the third act, Howard’s confidence with the material and the performers comes through as well. In one particularly amusing scene late in the film, Capri throws a paranormal tantrum and starts messing with the guests at her own party. Downs and Cravalho are at their best here, as they revel in exercising a different range of emotions, from rage to petulance. The scene that follows, in which Darby analyzes her classmates’ responses to witnessing the supernatural, features some of the film’s strongest writing. In these moments, Darby and the Dead, like its protagonist by the end, embraces its quirky and whimsical sides to winning effect.