Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Oh Belinda’ on Netflix, A Creative Escape from Method Acting Madness

Be it Jared Leto or Jeremy Strong, extreme proponents of the so-called “Method acting” school have grabbed many a headline recently. The Turkish film Oh Belinda, now streaming on Netflix, has a little more fun with the wildest cases of getting into a character. What if you got so far into playing a fictional person that you actually became them?

OH BELINDA: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Dilara (Neslihan Atagül Doğulu) is an actress in soap operas who’s selfishly going through the motions. She feels frustrated by the limited parts she’s being offered and angered by the extent to which people feel like they can insult the craft she does get to show. That balance of power shifts entirely when she steps on the set of a Belinda shampoo commercial and a very insistent director insists that she get into her character of Handan … really into it. While showering in front of the camera, something happens that really unlocks the character.

When Dilara opens her eyes, she’s not on set – she’s in the actual life of Handan, with her on-screen husband Necati (Necip Memili) living fully in his character’s reality without any awareness that he was once acting. Her partner Serkan (Serkan Çayoglu, a Turkish actor seemingly playing a version of himself) doesn’t recognize her when she comes home … and has shacked up with a younger woman who looks just like her. Unsatisfied with her new surroundings, Dilara rages against the machine and gets herself briefly institutionalized. While there, she meets a woman seemingly also not from their world who encourages her to play the game more strategically to get her life back. And thus, the calculation to exit the character of  Handan for good really begins.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Though it’s not technically a body-swap movie because Dilara stays in her own skin and bones, the film feels of a spiritual kinship with things like Freaky Friday or Heaven Can Wait.

Performance Worth Watching: Neslihan Atagül Doğulu really nails the tone of the movie in her high-strung performance. She understands the stakes Dilara is playing with and acts accordingly. When she takes it seriously, it gives the film some necessary weight.

Memorable Dialogue: “Show me the Handan inside of you,” Dilara’s director tells her. Little do we know just how literal that will become.

Sex and Skin: Oh Belinda is quite frank in depicting sex with multiple scenes depicting the act from different positions. Not literally – the film evolves from its introductory scene of Dilara climaxing so loudly that her neighbor has to ask her to keep it down. But when Dilara becomes Handan, she quickly realizes that sexuality is not always enjoyable when she’s the object rather than the subject of pleasure. Whether her husband suggests a “morning workout” of sex that she’s not exactly feeling or her new boss propositions her for what would appear to be routine oral sex, she comes to realize her need for empowerment to drive the agenda of her own life.

Our Take: There’s an interesting tonal balance in Oh Belinda. The film starts out in a more comedic register as Dilara adjusts to Handan’s world, but it quickly – and mostly nimbly – pivots to something more like a thriller as she fights to regain her old life. The broad strokes feel a bit familiar, yet the execution is interesting enough to hold attention even if Deniz Yorulmazer’s direction is a bit bland.

Our Call: STREAM IT! Oh Belinda finds intrigue in a high-concept story of a conceited actor forced to live literally in her character. It’s decently entertaining enough to make for a fun movie night even if it’s not saying anything particularly novel or notable about its subject.

Marshall Shaffer is a New York-based freelance film journalist. In addition to Decider, his work has also appeared on Slashfilm, Slant, The Playlist and many other outlets. Some day soon, everyone will realize how right he is about Spring Breakers.

Watch Oh Belinda on Netflix