

The existence of the devil is one of several examples of how Ready or Not uses religious imagery to tell its tale. (Starting a company that manufactures playing cards in the middle of the Civil War is not obviously a recipe for success.) Le Bail is the devil, basically, and it turns out that Alex’s great-great-grandfather sold his soul - quite literally - to Le Bail, to guarantee fabulous wealth for his family. Now, the Le Domases will spend all night hunting Grace they have to kill her before morning, they believe, something she comes to understand, to her terror and fury. Unlike some of the other game options in the box, hide-and-seek hasn’t been drawn for decades - not since Helene’s wedding, which we catch a glimpse of at the beginning of the film. You can sort of guess where Ready or Not is going: The game of “hide-and-seek” is not just a game but a bloody hunting outing, with the rich family as the hunters and everywoman stand-in Grace as the target.
Ready or not cast movie#
(Light spoilers follow.) Ready or Not is a movie about what happens when you sell your soul to the devil It’s a strange setup that explodes into something like a gory fable about the perils of too much money and greed - a morality tale and a savage romp rolled into one, with a blisteringly cathartic ending. She draws the card for hide-and-seek Alex turns white. Grace finds the tradition bizarre, but good-naturedly agrees to go along with her new family’s idiosyncrasies, even if Alex seems far too distressed about playing some checkers or poker on their wedding night. The new member of the family draws a card from a special box, revealing the name of a game that everyone then must play. One of their stranger traditions - though at least it’s in keeping with the family business - is that at midnight after a wedding, everyone comes together in the special family-only drawing room. Fox SearchlightĪs you might guess, the Le Domas clan is not. So the whole family has convened, including creepy Aunt Helene (Nicky Guadagni), to witness their union. And though Alex fled his family years ago - “they’re horrible people,” he tells Grace - he’s agreed to host the wedding at his family’s estate because Grace so wanted to be part of a family. Grace is beautiful and spunky and grew up in foster homes as one family member remarks to another, she is nothing like the Le Domas family, because she “has a soul.” Because she grew up without a permanent family, Grace is delighted to be joining one, whether or not they’re wealthy. The whole family has gathered for Alex’s wedding to Grace (Samara Weaving). Now they’re fabulously wealthy, and the current patriarch Tony (Henry Czerny) and his wife Becky (Andie MacDowell) live in the sprawling estate, while their children Melanie (Melanie Scrofano), Daniel (Adam Brody), and Alex (Mark O’Brien) have moved on to lives, spouses, and children of their own. The house is occupied by the Le Domas family, whose fortune was made on games - first they sold playing cards, during the Civil War, followed by more games and trinkets in subsequent generations. It’s the perfect sort of house in which to play hide-and-seek.

Touches like servants’ passageways and dumbwaiters are preserved throughout. Ready or Not is a good old-fashioned satirical revenge fantasy, set in one of those creaky historic mansions with fantastic, expansive, obsessively manicured grounds. Ready or Not takes its name from a game, an amusement for children, but it has something to say about some very grown-up concerns. In the end, it’s a fantasy of comeuppance - a bloody, manic one with plenty of weaponry and gore to go around and a determined heroine (or maybe an avenging angel) at its center. Vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark vox-mark
