May Review
by Ryan Ellis (flickershows AT hotmail DOT com)February 9th, 2004
May
a video review
by Ryan Ellis
February 6, 2004
I write the first sentence of this review just as the clock passes 1 in the morning. After spending 93 minutes with last summer's no-budget release called 'May' tonight, I immediately shut off the TV and quickly jotted down some points about this experience. And I struggle to find words to do justice to this perverse, weird, pitch-black horror picture of an obsessive outcast who will do anything for a friend---ANYTHING. I can only imagine what other critics would have said about this flick when it was out for its micro-run in theatres last year. Since it could indeed be labelled a scary movie, right away it's beneath the snobs who don't realize a good horror story can get into deeper themes than most prestige costume epics. Since the movie is filled with gallows humour, many viewers will be angry with the gore and guts, thinking that the "sickos behind the camera" are going for pointless gross-outs. And since I really didn't know where this thing was going, you could even describe it as a fantasy-thriller (which is yet another disreputable style of filmmaking). Whatever the label, this is one whacked-out movie.
Make no mistake, any positive grade I give is a little charitable. Credit for this project must be placed squarely at the feet of the scary-good Angela Bettis. This young woman has given us a character which ranks with some of the most memorable of 2003. In fact, it might sound like hyperbole, but I'd even go so far as to put this performance up there with some of the great achievements in the history of the horror genre. Bettis finds the zone with May Canady right from her first appearance on screen, then stays right where she's supposed to through the final ironic seconds and beyond. The girl is creepy throughout and unquestionably insane in the final third of the movie, but it's Bettis' intensity & authenticity that ground her character in some kind of reality. There are people just as isolated as May, even though they're functioning in the world and don't seem to be dangerous. How do you play that without going over the top? Take look at this film to see how.
So after raving about Angela Bettis, will I say she's award-worthy? Sure, the same way that Bela Lugosi was award-worthy in 'Dracula'. In other words, no freakin' chance. See, these kinds of performances go beyond mere trophies. May won't become the icon that Dracula is, but maybe she should. Recognition doesn't come easy, though. It doesn't help that they both star in genre films. So while I'm not going to contend that Bettis belongs in the running for a Best Actress Oscar with Charlize Theron and Naomi Watts, her work in 'May' goes to a different corner of the movie world. It's a powerful piece of acting and it's a compliment to say that she hasn't done much for the reputation of us loners.
I went in unsure of the story. It's nearly impossible to see a show without having seen the trailer 40 or 50 times, but 'May' flew under the radar last year. Roger Ebert raved about it, yet I don't remember anything he said. [As I recall, Richard Roeper didn't agree and even bashed the movie.] So I hesitate to tell you anything more until you see it first. This isn't so much a spoiler warning as it is a suggestion to go in unprepared. Rent this on DVD or see it on digital cable before you read reviews. This isn't 'Memento' or 'Mulholland Dr.' [I also saw that tonight...now THERE is a brilliant mystery-thriller.] In fact, the story is straight-forward enough. Reclusive girl who works for a veterinarian wants more than anything to make friends. When she scares people off by being weird, she takes their rejection of her very badly. We've seen that before. What's different is just how far May is willing to go. There are hints of what's coming in the climax through the entire production, but you still might find yourself groaning "oh, no" each time May notices something she likes in other people (in a manner of speaking).
So the plot. After a brief prelude where lonely May is a young girl with a lazy eye and a corrective eyepatch (causing the other kids to wonder if she's a pirate), we skip ahead to a time when she's a grown woman living with just her cat. She's had one of those ultra-creepy plastic dolls since she was a little kid, never having taken it out of its glass box. "Suzy" has been May's best friend for all these years. Thankfully, we're not subjected to a lame doll voiceover, but May does talk to her buddy and take advice. She's apparently been at the vet's office for years, since she can translate the words of a hard-to-understand doctor and participates in animal surgeries. Polly (Anna Faris, who's impressive in risky projects such as this and 'Lost In Translation') seems to have some sort of stoned crush on May, who has a crush of her own on Adam (Jeremy Sisto). May ends up in romantic interludes with both of them, but really wants to make Adam her boyfriend. As much as he might get a kinky kick out of strange girls, this is different. He doesn't know just how messed up she is, but he's outta there when she acts like Elvira during a bloody make-out session. Blowing her off is not a good idea because she refuses to take no for an answer. Once she's made her decision how she will make friends for life, she becomes clear-eyed and focussed. The ruthlessness of the third act is what should not be given away. This portion of the film is a classic example of the adage, "I do not want to look, yet I cannot turn away".
For a freshman director, Lucky McKee shows guts by, uh...showing guts. He wouldn't be the first filmmaker to start a career with buckets of blood (see Sam Raimi), but he tells a compact story without being too excessive. As graphic as the proceedings get, however, this is not gratuitous. What's shocking is that it's a girl doing the killing, not a traditional male serial killer or even a Kathy Bates type in 'Misery'. I guess we've grown accustomed to the kinds of characters found in 'Frankenstein', 'The Silence Of The Lambs' and 'American Psycho'. There are shades of those films in 'May'. And like those movies, this one has a bizarre wit. There's gallows humour throughout, which becomes even more droll when the bloodbath begins. The film goes for broke and doesn't compromise its own principles. For that I'm grateful because I started to wonder if my review would be saying that the lead actress was great, but the movie itself was a pile of poo. Still, even though the movie succeeds on multiple levels, it's odd that the central underpinning (the doll's influence over May) doesn't work. There are almost supernatural elements at play with the doll and they should have either gone all the way with it or eliminated the idea altogether. Fortunately, the movie doesn't suffer very much from this because it has Angela Bettis' totally committed performance.
Strange that May feels ugly and wants to take the beautiful parts of other people. She IS a pretty girl. While I understand why May would have had trouble making or keeping chums, someone as cute as her would get asked out on a regular basis. Not that she doesn't manage to look pretty bad once she decides to dress up as the doll for Halloween. It's in this scene where Polly's nickname for May---Doll---proves to be wonderfully ironic. You can see on the movie's poster that right down to the chalky-white face, May has reached a goth simplicity when she "becomes" that doll. I had a feeling where things might be going in this section of the flick, but at least I wasn't counting down the seconds for plot points to be reached (some of which I wasn't expecting anyway). However, the screenplay isn't breaking new ground. And while the movie isn't scary, it IS unsettling. I'll take that. Scaring people at the movies isn't easy anymore, but creeping them out is good enough. 'May' does that, powered from the very beginning by a talented actress named Angela Bettis.
To contact me with kudos or criticism, write to [email protected].
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
