YMMV / Do Revenge

• Actor Shipping: A few have taken to shipping Camila Mendes and Maya Hawke together due to the chemistry they have in the film and their chumminess in interviews. It helps that Maya admitted during a lie detector test for Vanity Fair that she would take Camilla on a date.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • For a pretty one dimensional antagonist, Max gets a surprising amount of it:
    • Why exactly did Max leak out the video? Out of entitled resentment that Drea never "appreciated" him? Out of disgust of her being manipulative? Or out of fear that she may be plotting against him as well?
    • Was Max's lament that he's dissatisfied with school life and dreams of backpacking around Europe true, or was it just an attempt to endear Eleanor to him?
    • Max is seen in a toxic masculinity support group at the end. Considering the group's focus, did he have a Heel Realization and wanted to redeem himself for his horrible behaviour? Did he just want to pretend to be redeemed? Or was he just seeking consolation after his social downfall?
  • When Erica approaches her at rehab, Drea puts on an ignorant demeanor rather than apologising or trying to leave. Was she remorseless or amused by Erica's downfall, or was she just trying to avoid implicating herself?
  • Were Max and Drea's friends' well wishes to Drea after her accident genuine or just to get back in her good graces in case she was asked about them?
  • Did Eleanor tell the truth about not watching Drea's sex tape, or did she watch it (and maybe even pleasure herself to it)? (Considering that the reveal shows that Eleanor, not Erica, was the one to send everyone the video at tennis camp, this was presumably a lie.)
  • Why did Drea out and humiliate Eleanor during the party? Out of petty spite for Eleanor blackmailing her? To stop Eleanor from forcing her to take drugs? Or to drive Eleanor out of the party so she could apologize in private?
• Angst? What Angst?: Carissa is surprisingly content at rehab despite being expelled from Rosehill and is only surprised and slightly amused when Drea accuses her of assaulting Eleanor, apparently not catching on that both of them ruined her life.
• Award Snub: Given the movie's popularity, it was surprising that while it got an MTV Movie & TV Award nomination for Best Duo (Camila Mendes & Maya Hawke), it didn't get any other nominations such as Best Movie, Best Kiss (Hawke & Talia Ryder) or Best Villain (Austin Abrams) along with it.
• Awesome Music:
  • Much like other teen movies—or the like—before it, it's got a Covered Up version of "Kids in America"—this one by Maude Latour.
  • Given it's a more vulgar and harder edged version of the teen movie formula, it has more angsty and dark—but nonetheless popular—songs in it, specifically "brutal" by Olivia Rodrigo and "happier than ever" by Billie Eilish as the highlights.
• Catharsis Factor: Everything crumbling out from under Max the moment that his confession is played for everyone at the party down to Tara dumping him, everyone refusing to help him as he continues to get more and more agitated and angry and his attempting to lash out and taunt Drea again being met with a slap in the face before he finally collapses to his knees outside as nothing but a helpless and disgraced wreck.
• Die for Our Ship: Russ and Gabbi are often unceremoniously written out of the equation in Drea/Eleanor fanfics.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Eleanor is not only part of Drea's revenge plot, but also carrying out an elaborate revenge plot which involves not only sending two mostly innocent women to rehab but hitting Drea with her car. However, due to her Freudian Excuse, good looks, and Maya Hawke's compelling performance, a lot of fangirls on Tumblr and Twitter have little problem excusing her actions and saying she did nothing wrong. It helps that she aids Drea in getting her revenge.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Drea Torres and Eleanor Levetan/Nora Cutler instantly proved to be an insanely more popular pairing together than Drea with her canon pairing with Russ or Eleanor's canon one with Gabbi Broussard. This is attributed heavily not only to the Les Yay between the two characters and their complex and challenging relationship, but by means of the strong chemistry between actors Camila Mendes and Maya Hawke as well.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • Erica, the haughty girl at tennis camp. After Drea planted cocaine on her after she allegedly spread around her tape although it was actually Eleanor, she lost her Stanford scholarship and developed an actual coke problem. Drea is remorseless when she sees Erica at rehab later on, who is unable to do anything but growl curses at her.
  • Carissa, Eleanor's ex. While Eleanor says Carissa lied that she assaulted her at camp, it's revealed that Drea was the actual accuser. While Eleanor does claim that Carissa abandoned her, she says she did so because she was terrified about Drea accusing her as well. Despite this, her drug farm is exposed and she is expelled from Rosehill as part of Eleanor's revenge plan against Drea. When Drea meets her, Carissa reminisces about Eleanor and even seems to still harbour feelings on her.
  • Drea herself. She's a cruel, conniving girl who manipulates the downfall of her classmates, but is completely humiliated when her beloved boyfriend leaks a naked video of her around the school, ruining her while he gets off scott-free. The one friend she mistreats but genuinely cares for leaves her for her old friends and reveals that she was planning to manipulate her from the start.
  • Eleanor, it turns out. She reveals herself to be a Manipulative Bitch who orchestrated the downfall of two mostly innocent girls to get revenge on a girl already suffering from a sex tape. Yet being falsely accused of sexual assault led to Carissa breaking up with her, having to get a nose job and name change and go to a treatment center. Even in the present, Eleanor easily breaks down into tears when Drea insults her again.
• Les Yay: Aplenty among Drea and Eleanor. For one, Drea starts calling herself Eleanor's "Revenge Mommy" and they cuddle in bed at one point. Drea even says she thinks they're "fucked up soulmates".
• Magnificent Bitch:
  • Drea Torres loses her status as the queen bee and becomes obsessed with getting revenge after her boyfriend Max Broussard leaks a sex tape of her. When the sex tape follows Drea to her job at a country club, she has a rival kicked out by framing her for being in possession of drugs. Teaming up with Eleanor Levetan to get revenge on their enemies, Drea has Eleanor infiltrate her old friends group to get dirt on Max while she reveals that Carissa is secretly growing drugs at school by dosing the whole class. Even when it's revealed that she was the one who spread a rumor about Eleanor and that Eleanor is trying to get revenge on her, Drea reveals that Eleanor is actually "Nosey Nora" before making amends with Eleanor as "fucked up soulmates" and revealing to the school that Max did indeed leak the sex tape. Ending the film spending her summer with Eleanor and making up with her Love Interest Russ, Drea even helps Eleanor win back her own girlfriend Gabbi.
  • Eleanor Levetan, formerly known as Nora Cutler, quickly proves to be far more crafty than she first appears. Wanting revenge on Drea Torres for ruining her life by spreading a rumor that Eleanor assaulted her, Eleanor purposefully transfers to Drea's school and follows her to her summer job, pretending to befriend Drea by secretly sabotaging her car to get close to her. Playing along with Drea's revenge plan while also getting revenge on Carissa for abandoning her, Eleanor quickly grows genuinely fond of Drea and considers actually stopping her plan before deciding to go bigger after Drea starts to mistreat her. Blackmailing Drea and hitting her with her car to get Drea back in her old friend group, Eleanor plans to have Drea secretly record everything they do at the Admissions Party and then leak it to incriminate Drea. When Drea sincerely apologizes and destroys her camera, Eleanor reveals that she recorded Drea's ex-boyfriend Max's confession with her backup camera and uses it to reveal to everyone what a scumbag Max really is.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Angry Natalia Dyer.^ExplanationTalia Ryder, who plays Eleanor's love interest Gabbi, bears a physical resemblance and similar name to Maya Hawke's Stranger Things co-star Natalia Dyer, prompting a few memes on Twitter of Dyer being jealous over Hawke and Ryder's relationship.
  • "I DON'T DO COCAINE!"^ExplanationSophie Turner's character Erica angrily proclaiming that she DOESN'T DO COCAINE has spawned a number of memes, with some proclaiming it to be her best acting to date and others comparing it to the relationship between Rue and her mother in Euphoria.
  • "I'm shocked! This is shocking news!"^ExplanationA sarcastic quote from Drea. It is often used by fans to pretend to be shocked at obvious news.
• One True Threesome: While Eleanor/Gabbi make up a fairly popular Official Couple and Eleanor/Drea are the Fan-Preferred Couple with plenty of Homoerotic Subtext, a lot of fans ship Drea/Eleanor/Gabbi together rather than shipping Eleanor with either on their own as a way to avoid Ship-to-Ship Combat. It helps that Gabbi defends Drea following her and Eleanor's fight and Drea helps Eleanor win Gabbi back, making it easy for fans to assume Gabbi and Drea get along with each other.
• One-Scene Wonder: Sophie Turner only has a few scenes as Erica but steals the film with her magnificently over the top performance and memorable scenes, particularly her volatile response to Drea's visit later.
• Portmanteau Couple Name:
  • Shippers on Tumblr have taken to referring to the Eleanor/Drea ship as "Dreanor" or "Dreleanor".
  • "Gabbinor" for Gabbi/Eleanor.
• Preemptive Shipping: Even before the film was released, fans were shipping Drea and Eleanor due to the trailers playing up the Les Yay between the two and Camila Mendes and Maya Hawke's chumminess while promoting it. This continued after the film's release, with Drea/Eleanor quickly becoming the Fan-Preferred Couple.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Aside from a slut-shaming comment when the video is initially leaked, Drea doesn't really get harassed, bullied, taunted or ostracised by her peers outside of her original friend group, who even then feign sympathy for her, and is still as confident as ever. Her facing bullying and harassment would have made her more pitiful and sympathetic.
• Spiritual Successor:
  • To another teen age tale of sex, jealousy, and revenge Cruel Intentions. Fittingly, Sarah Michelle Gellar has a supporting role.
  • To Mean Girls, as both are stories about teen girls infiltrating a popular clique and getting more than they bargained for, with a twist near the end that flips things on its head.
  • To Sweet/Vicious, director Jennifer Kaytin Robinson’s first project, as both involve two girls in a school setting (one in high school, the other in college) teaming up to enact justice against a misogynistic male classmate who committed a sexual offense against one of them, maintains a popular facade amongst their peers, and finally gets taken down by them via Engineered Public Confession; more specifically, the Caught on Tape variant. In addition: Eliza Bennett, who played main protagonist Jules on the show, has a small (but memorable) role in the film as Jessica, Erica’s lackey.
  • To Strangers on a Train (which the film itself is loosely inspired by), as both involve two characters who don’t know each other carrying out revenge on each other’s respective targets; Eleanor is even seen reading a copy of the original novel that the movie was based on. Subverted when we learn that they were never strangers to begin with…
  • Tentatively, to the Kill Bill duology, as those films revolved around Uma Thurman carrying out an elaborate revenge plot, while this film involves her kid (who bears a striking resemblance to her, BTW) doing the same thing, albeit in a slightly less violent fashion. Like mother, like daughter.
• Why Would Anyone Take Her Back?: Platonic version between Drea and Eleanor. Despite Drea falsely accusing Eleanor of sexual assault, ruining her life and friendships, being a dismissive friend and outing her again at the party and Eleanor stalking Drea, threatening her mother, ramming Drea's car with her own car and sending her to the hospital, and attempting to blackmail her into taking drugs and humiliating herself, the two girls remain friends at the end of the movie.

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