“Everything I have said and done has been in the hands of God. I was born to do this. I am not afraid.” Bella Thorne’s vigilante serial killer protagonist repeats this powerful Joan of Arc quote several times throughout Saint Clare. Based on author Don Roff’s 2021 novel Clare at Sixteen, director and co-writer Mitzi Peirone’s 2024 film — also penned by Guinevere Turner, of Go Fish and American Psycho fame — centers on enigmatic small-town college student Clare Bleeker (Thorne), whose drifter childhood left her unable to sustain long-term intimacy. Still, she’s left a bloody mark on every town and city she’s briefly called home, murdering immoral and downright evil men and getting away with it every time.
Saint Clare
2
/5
- Release Date
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September 5, 2024
- Runtime
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92 minutes
- Director
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Mitzi Peirone
- Writers
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Guinevere Turner
- Producers
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Cassian Elwes, Mark Damon, Tamara Birkemoe, Bella Thorne, Joel Michaely, Jere Hausfater, Seth Needle, Thor Bradwell, Nadia Redler, David Chackler, Veronica Radaelli, Arielle Elwes, Dave Sereny
Clare is guided by mysterious voices, as well as an innate knowledge that what she’s doing is God’s will. But when Clare kills Joe Morton (Bart Johnson), a predatory and unsophisticated man who drives around the tiny town of Pickmann Flats kidnapping young women, she soon finds herself in the middle of a decades-long mystery surrounding missing girls, corruption and human trafficking.
But what could’ve been a delicious blend of Dexter and Medium with a sprinkling of Buffy the Vampire Slayer is tonally confused and desperate to revive the twisted magnetism of Peirone’s cryptocurrency-funded Tribeca hit Braid. Featuring a bold aesthetic that mimicked an Alice in Wonderland acid trip, Braid offered something weird and fresh. But Saint Clare, which also stars Ryan Phillippe and Rebecca De Mornay, is unfortunately misguided, with clashing elements that recall Mean Girls, Carrie and The CW Network. For a film supposedly rooted in faith and sacrifice, Saint Clare is sinful in its uncertainty.
Martyrdom, Pesky Ghosts, and an Unfortunate Wig
“Just like the martyred visionary general Joan of Arc, Clare has taught me that when you are destined with vision and clarity of purpose, then nothing can scare you — not loneliness, not violence, not being misunderstood and called insane, not rejection and ultimately not even death,” Peirone writes in her director’s statement. This declaration is woven into Saint Clare, as the fearless protagonist holds Joan — the patron saint of France who was burned at the stake for heresy — close to her heart. Despite the film’s devout overtones, Saint Clare feels disconnected from personal piety, as imagery of Clare singing in a church choir, a film poster for 1928’s The Passion of Joan of Arc and a cluster of crimson votive candles surrounding a photo of the protagonist’s late mother express its threadbare religious theme.
The audience is not told why or how Clare became religious, aside from the fact that she attends a Catholic college. The specifics of her supernatural gifts are not clearly laid out, either: Layered whispers fill her head, as do dark visions of being burned alive at the stake. But Clare’s gifts become confused and far-fetched when the ghost of a mailman (Frank Whaley) visits her, sometimes annoying her with advice and sometimes feeding her hints. This wildly out-of-place gimmick, which recalls films like Ghost Town and Beetlejuice, is one of Saint Clare‘s biggest sins. Its jarring goofiness just does not mix with the story, which explores the burden of faith through Clare’s uncovering of a human trafficking operation.
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Peirone’s surrealist style is a poor fit for Saint Clare more generally: The dreamlike imagery and experimental visuals feel heavy, even wrong, against that wacky postman spirit and the superficial characters. Of Clare’s two close-ish friends, Juliana LeBlanc (Joy Rovaris) and Amity Liston (Erica Dasher), the latter is more so a frenemy who speaks in the cadence of Mean Girls‘ Gretchen Wieners for seemingly no reason. Many of Amity’s quips feel out of place, and the outdated and entirely unnecessary characterization of Joel Michaely’s stereotypical sassy gay theater director is plucked straight from the 2010s. The comic ridiculousness continues when Johnson reappears in a ratty shake-and-go wig as the dead man’s brother, and when Clare uses her combat skills (which are barely explained) to defeat a room full of men while wearing a schoolgirl miniskirt.
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It’s painfully unclear whether Saint Clare was meant to be playful camp or a stylish whodunit laced with religious allegories. Thorne’s performance is at times shaky, and although Peirone’s color-saturated vision adds depth and grit, the project ultimately lacks a self-assured identity. Given her knack for seeing the deviant beauty in destruction, however, Peirone will hopefully be able to wash Saint Clare‘s blood from her hands.
Saint Clare hits U.S. theaters and VOD and on digital platforms on July 18, 2025.
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