Jerry Hickfang (Ryan Reynolds) is the kind of man no one would suspect of any wrong doing; well-groomed, mild-mannered, and charmingly naïve and uncomplicated, he gets along with all his co-workers at the bathtub factory at which he works, and lives a comfortable life with his cat and dog in the podunk town of Milton.
But Jerry has deep-seated problems- problems that stem from his schizophrenic mother, his abusive stepfather, and his own out-of-control fantasies and delusions that manifest themselves in voices and often comforting, if woefully misleading, visions. Like many mentally ill people, Jerry finds that all the color is drained from his life when he takes the zombifying- but clearly very,
very necessary- anti-psychotic medications his psychiatrist (Jacki Weaver) prescribes.
But Jerry has a secret. It's not that shocking that Jerry talks to his pets (Hell, doesn't everybody?) But his animals have been particularly vocal lately. His cat, especially, has been known to push him to the edge. And Mr. Whiskers has an agenda- an agenda that becomes downright murderous after Jerry accidently kills his indifferent love interest Fiona (Gemma Arterton) in a fit of panic.
Mr. Whiskers is insistent that Jerry kill again, but Jerry's lovable mastiff, Bosco, tries to convince Jerry to live a morally righteous life. Jerry's descent into madness is both wickedly funny, fairly disturbing, and oddly touching.
The Voices, helmed by the graphic novelist Marjane Satrapi (
Persepolis,
Chicken With Plums) is an offbeat morality tale about the inner struggle of deciding to be a 'good boy' vs. giving in to your inner sociopath.
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| Aw, I was just going to make a Talking Heads joke... *sulks* |
The script is convoluted, and often downright ridiculous; in a shamelessly politically incorrect, colorfully absurdist way that actually, thematically and stylistically, has moxy; scenes like the one where Jerry mercy kills the (also strangely talkative) deer in a way that is so compassionate and strong that it leaves Fiona running into the woods delivering terrified shrieks worthy of a scream queen, her excessive reaction honestly baffling poor Jerry; deliver pitch-black laughs for a certain audience. It's not a perfect film by a long shot, it's actually kind of a mess in a lot of ways, like Jerry himself, but at least it can be said for the film's screenplay that it embraces the chaotic, violently silly excesses to a surprising extent. It's all part of the blackly comic vision screenwriter Michael R. Perry has offered up for us.
The Voices is also visually striking; there's a distinct contrast between the beauty, presented up in rich hues that make up how Jerry sees the world and the dank, dark reality of Jerry's bloodstained apartment.
Ryan Reynolds gives a surprisingly darkly humorous and bleak performance as Jerry, an upbeat man-child with a homicidal streak, and disturbingly, you're forced to sympathize with his earnest if deranged worldview, and thus, to some extent, his crimes. Bosco and Mr. Whiskers are also voiced by Reynolds, which makes perfect sense, being that they are quite literally extensions of Jerry himself.
Considering the talent that is on display here, the totally WTF ending is regrettable to say the least. It's like the writer went 'what the hell' after days of writer's block, got high, and quickly scrawled down an ending with no real cohesion or connection to the rest of the story. Why not have a big song and dance sequence at the end of your horror film? Add Jesus? What the hell! We don't see enough of that guy these days anyway.
For people who wanted an actual conclusion to Jerry's story, that you know, made any kind of sense whatsoever, the ending will be a huge disappointment. Simply put- this is not a great movie. But it is the kind of movie I like to watch, off-the-chain and quirkily, even shallowly psychological, and I found something about it to be unironically compelling; compelling in the sense that there was some kind of intelligence, and even a soul, going on among the schizoid proceedings, not compelling in the
Tommy Wiseau way, simply in terms of what narcotic substances the 'artist' was using and (in old T-Wise's case) how many times they had been dropped on their head getting from point a to point b writing the script.
For those viewers who set their expectations (reasonably) low and prepare for a stinker of an ending, for those movie lovers who like their comedies pitch-black and all kinds of twisted,
The Voices might turn out to be a strangely gratifying experience. Because like poor Jerry Hickfang, we all see the world the way we want to see it. But unlike Jerry, most of us are unwilling to kill for that vision.
Note: It has been a while since I saw this film and wrote the first version of what became this review, and although I would have preferred a more serious ending that, while still absurdist, was a more well thought out (or in this particular cases, apparently thought out at all) way to conclude Jerry's story, the ending has such a 'so-bad-it's-good' quality that I can't hold too much against it. I would recommend this film. I really would. But I would still advise potential viewers to manage their expectations, because like it's anti-hero,
The Voices is a lovably schizoid piece of work, like Jerry, a little restraint might have been in order.
The Voices gets awarded 3 and and 1/2 out out of 5 stars. Weirdly enough, this might be the best acting performance I've ever seen Ryan Reynolds give, along with his turn as Paul in Buried. I think Ryan Reynolds might have real potential as an actor if he stayed away from the one-note silly shit where he romances female a-listers and takes his shirt off constantly. I think he could have some talent going on there, and let's face it, if you told people during the 90's that someday Matthew McConaughey would give performances in things (like Mud, Dallas Buyers Club, and the first season of True Detective) that would be widely considered to have some serious dramatic chops in the 21st century, you would have been told to return to your reefer and not completely sober viewings and re-viewing's of Richard Linklater's Dazed & Confused. And I still think this and Buried (the surprisingly tense Ryan Reynolds trapped in a coffin for an hour and a half thriller) are better movies that Deadpool, but what do I know about these things? I 'm just a fish.
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And as a mere goldfish, I really just don't *have* an opinion about how over-hyped
Deadpool was as a superhero movie. Oh, wait...
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