Stranger Things standout Joe Keery delivers one of his most compelling performances to date alongside rising star Camila Morrone in Marmalade, a genre-bending romantic crime thriller that unfolds through flashbacks and keeps audiences guessing until the very end. Written and directed by Keir O’Donnell in his feature directorial debut, Marmalade reinvents the outlaw love story for modern audiences.
In Marmalade, Baron (Keery) is a well-meaning young man whose quiet life is upended when he falls for the enigmatic and fearless Marmalade (Morrone). Their whirlwind romance spirals into a daring bank robbery and incarceration. Behind bars, Baron recounts his story to cellmate Otis (Aldis Hodge), who sees in Baron’s love story a reason to defy the odds.
Marmalade sets itself apart from the heist genre with its puzzle-box narrative structure, where each flashback peels back another layer of the story, slowly revealing that nothing about Baron’s version of events is quite as it seems.
In an interview, Keery talked about what drew him to the film’s unpredictability. “That’s kind of why I like the movie. It feels like it’s traipsing through a bunch of different genres and at its core has these really fun characters that go through these twists… I think there’s more than meets the eye with this film,” said Keery.
He also praised the film’s ability to surprise even savvy audiences, saying, “You’ll go in maybe with a certain expectation and it hopefully subverts that… The audience is so smart nowadays and everyone can see three steps ahead of the plot, and there’s nothing worse than sort of knowing that. This movie offers something a little different and surprising—a little bit of fun and a bright spot for people.”