I love movies that take me into a different world for 90-120 minutes. A world where you can care about someone you wouldn't like in real life or wouldn't associate with. I would hangout with Angela Bettis anytime. Her character May not so much. Just like Pearl we see what this character is like behind closed doors compared to the characters that have to find out. As a person who has been single most of my life and has lost time doing things I want to do because of an eye disease, I really related to May. The problem is though as Adam says in this movie I like weird but not that weird. This could be seen as a commentary on things and people we like in movies but not in real life. That idea is even reflected in the movie when Adam shows may his movie with cannibalism and she starts wanting to act out the movie which he is put off by. I like that we got both perspectives on how people feel about May but also how she feels even more hurt by the way they treat her.
The movie starts with May as a child wearing an eye patch to school because her mother thinks kids will make fun of her because of her lazy eye. Her mother makes her a doll named Suzie to be her best friend and keeps Suzie locked in a glass case. The movie transitions to May (Angela Bettis) as an adult. She is seen sewing. She talks to Suzie about how she will like certain parts of people but will be put off by how they see her and not like her. This is shown when she starts looking at a guy sitting near her on a bench but once he sees her lazy eye he is put off. May shows an interest in Adam (Jeremy Sisto), and more specifically his hands. Adam works as a mechanic near where May lives. May works as a veterinarian assistant with Polly (Anna Faris) and a foreign Doctor (Ken Davitian). May is able to interest the things he pronounces wrong such as "scoopels," instead of scalpels. Her eye doctor fixes her lazy eye first with glasses then with contacts. May starts to become more confident and makes her own clothes.
Here are some scenes from the movie as I loved so many of them that I can't single one out: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZbXA4lyCtqpuGq4fi7KC2VNquSBH4smL
May begins to stalk Adam around as she can't bring herself to say hi to him. When he falls a asleep at a restaurant she goes over and begins touching his hands and rubbing her face on them. He eventually wakes up and she leaves. She later sees him at the laundromat and they have a nice interaction where she smokes a cigarette for the first time. She notices his race car underwear and he says his girlfriend bought it. The smile goes back on May''s face when he says it was his ex-girlfriend. She later sees Adam on break from work and they eat a sandwich in a park where blind kids are also on a field trip from the child care center. More on that later. Adam says he likes weird and he likes gross. That intrigues May. She tells a story about how they had no dog sutures at work to sew a dog back up. They used triple cat sutures instead and the dog's stomach fell open so she had to suture it back up. Adam doesn't seem that put off by this. May has a smile the whole time while telling this story. Adam says he is going to see Dario Argento's Trauma. Him and May go hangout at his house where he shows her his movie memorabilia and some interesting things like fake retractable knives. He talks about a film he made and May invites him to her apartment so they can watch it. They have a good date at her house but May becomes aroused by the cannibalism in his film and tries to act it out when they start to have sex. She bites Adam's lip and he is put off by her being attracted to the blood. He leaves and hears May screaming at Suzie.
May looking adorable in glasses.
From early on in this movie I was rooting for May to find love. I couldn't help but see some of myself in her. People could be reading this saying Ian how do you find empathy with such a character. I find empathy with strange characters sometimes. Adam Sandler's character in Punch Drunk Love is one of the most relatable characters to me. As a person who has never had much besides a big relationship in high school, I really empathize with May wanting to connect with someone. Sometimes though I've tried to connect with people and found out they aren't what I expected. Especially when I talk to people online and then meet them in person. I've been ghosted as well and its hard and hurtful knowing that person is ghosting you. That scene where Adam lies about the washer being broken is really sad but it feels real. That being said you can only blame Adam so much because if May were real I wouldn't want to be around her either.
That leads me to my next point. May watching the cannibal film and being turned on by it, while Adam is repulsed by her is how we might feel if a woman tried to be May in real life. We like this stuff in movies but in real life we don't. I think that says something. I think Lucky McKee is trying to call people out a bit. Even as weird as May is we still empathize with her by the end of this movie. Yet in real life she would be equal to someone like Jeffrey Dahmer for wanting to kill people and keep their bodies. I think some of the other things May goes through are relatable as well. The lazy eye could relate to me as a person who who has lost time doing things with others because of an eye disease. When I couldn't see well at all for a couple of years I really couldn't do anything with others. May's problem is more a physical affliction and could relate to people with body dysmorphia disorder.
Spoiler Section
May eventually hooks up with Polly saying she likes her neck. Polly is into women and she says she likes weird just like Adam did. Polly gives her a cat named Lupe. Unfortunately when May goes to see her the next day she is all ready hooking up with another woman named Ambrosia (Nichole Hiltz). May eventually volunteers at the child care center. A blind girl named Petey makes her an ashtray. She brings Suzie to the child care center saying she is her best friend. May never takes her out of the glass though and the kids want to touch her and the glass breaks and the kids get injured by touching the broken glass. Suzy is broken into many parts. After this May reaches a breaking point. She kills Lupe by throwing the ashtray at her. She meets a punk (James Duval) on the bench and kills him with a pair of scissors to the head after he sees the cat in her freezer and calls her a freak. On Halloween she goes to Polly's house and slits her throat with a scalpel. She kills Ambrosia after saying she likes her legs. Finally she goes to Adam's house and kills his girlfriend (Nora Zehetner). She also kills Adam after he agrees to touch her face.
May in her homemade Halloween costume
She goes home and in a suitcase full of body parts he liked from all of the people she killed, assembles a new body to replace Suzie. She uses Adam's hands, Polly's neck, Ambrosia's legs, the Punk's arms, Lupe's fur for hair, and Adam's girlfriends ears as she liked her earrings. She uses the smashed ashtray to name the doll "Amy" with the letters. She realizes though that the doll can't see her without eyes. She gouges out her own eye and the doll comes to life and brushes her face with Adam's hands.
As the horror became more of the focus I liked this movie even more. When the kills come in the end in the form of scalpels and scissors I really enjoyed it. This joins the ranks of Us and Inside as movies with great kills using scissors. This movie has many homages to European genre films. Not only Adam going to see Trauma and having the Opera poster in his house with needles below the eyes. The building a body out of ideal parts feels right out of Pieces. This is a psychological horror movie where a character seems to have a split personality with whatever object they have. It reminds me of movies like Love Object or Magic in that way. It also becomes a slasher movie in the final act and a damn good one with how awesome the kills are. This is also like Audition if that story were told exclusively from Asami's perspective. May actually reminds me of Asami in that she wants people to love her and only her. Just like some real serial killers though she feels she has to make a friend because she can't connect to anyone. It feels just as real as cinematic. That scene with the broken glass is great because I feel secondhand embarrassment for May. I also feel anxiety and pain for her when Suzie is broken. I also feel pain for kids touching all the broken glass. So there are many moments in this I loved.
Rating: 10/10 For the longest time I've said Dark Water was my favorite film of 2002 but this is dead even with it now.
Trivia: The teenage girl who asks May "Got any cold ones?" This is when she sees her suitcase. That girl is dressed in the same cheerleader outfit makeup as Lucky McKee's first movie All Cheerleaders Die. Lucky McKee also cameos as the man making out with his girlfriend in the elevator.
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