May Review

Written by: Constantce   

May is not your average slasher.  My husband was so entranced that halfway through, he said, “I thought you said this was a horror movie.”   Every time I sneaked a peek at him, he was smiling, which is pretty shocking, considering he’s not a fan of the macabre.  Nobody’s perfect.

I absolutely loved Lucky McKee’s Sick Girl, so I knew I’d like May, but I had no idea it would sink its scalpel into my heart the way it did.  Angela Bettis’s title character is flawed but appealing, much like Ida in Sick Girl, but she is such an underdog that you want, you pray, that she can bridge the gap between herself and the rest of humanity.  She just wants a friend, even if she has no idea what that means.   There are a couple of brave people who have friend potential, Polly (Anna Faris, cute and hysterical as usual) and Adam (Jeremy Sisto).  They both say, “I like weird,” but when it comes to May, the weird goes too far.  She is incapable of normal emotion, but not in a cold way.  She yearns, and that is what drives her to piece together her own friend, the way her mother told her to, when she was young. 

By the time May starts killing, the viewer is emotionally invested in her well-being.  You can’t blame her for what she does, and you want things to end up well.  The ending was beyond perfect for me, even if I didn’t fully understand it.  Maybe I should rephrase.  The ending was beyond perfect for me because I didn’t fully understand it.  In a genre where Captain Obvious rules with an iron fist and the cliché is the cliché, a little ambiguity is an awesome thing.  I know I’ve been doling out the perfect tens lately, but I really can’t hold back with this one.  Lucky McKee apparently knows the way to my heart.  I absolutely loved this movie.