Title: May
Release Date: 2002
Written and Directed by: Lucky McKee
Cast:
May: Angela Bettis
Polly: Anna Faris
Adam: Jeremy Sisto
Ever see one of those movies that is so utterly ridiculous, so painful to
watch, that you can't really figure out why you are watching it, except perhaps a
vague desire to see how it ends? Well if not, go out right now and rent May.
About three-quarters of the way through May, I realized that perhaps the only
intrinsic value of the film was the potential of getting an amusing writeup out
of it. So, dear noders, what you are about to read represents 93 minutes of
giggling, groaning, and cries of "DEAR GOD THAT IS FUCKED UP!" on my part. Enjoy!
May is a creative but shy young lady who is afflicted with a dreadful malady...
LAZY EYE! When we meet May she is a blond, elfin creature wearing a HUGE black
eye patch, lovingly put in place by her ever-grinning mother. She is about eight
years old, and the scenes of her as a child show us the following pivotal events
in her life:
1.) She is alienated at school because she looks like a pirate.
2.) She is given a "special" doll named Susie in a glass box. "If you
don't have any friends, make your own!" advises May's mother, who herself
made Susie. This, you see, is ominous foreshadowing.
Flash forward to May as an adult, presumably in her early twenties. She
works at an animal hospital as a veterinary assistant. She spends her work
days helping with surgery, stabbing her thumbs with a scalpel ("to relax"),
and trying to figure out how to respond to the advances of her sexually
agressive coworker, Polly, played by that chick from Scary Movie. On
one of her breaks, she notices a handsome young man working
on a car. "He has such beautiful hands!" May, since she has
no social skills to speak of (her only friend up until this point has
been Susie the doll), has some difficulty striking up a conversation with
Mr. Prettyhands, but eventually manages to get his attention by rubbing
his hands on her face when he falls asleep at a coffee shop. The guy's
name is Adam, and though he is a weirdo who likes to make art with barbed
wire and movies about erotic cannibalism between two living people, he
is nowhere near as weird as May.
May is a neurotic, tremulous little weirdo who would almost be cute if she weren't such a nutcase. She is an excellent seamstress (more FORESHADOWING...) and actually
comes up with some spiffy little outfits. Her style is
bold and original. She runs into Adam at the laundromat, where he compliments her homemade clothes. The two of them have a moment, and start going out informally.
Their dates actually seem promising until May starts biting Adam. He is
not really into the whole blood-and-pain aspect of courtship, so he starts
avoiding May. May, who is certainly incredibly sexually repressed, seeks
solace in the perpetually stoned-sounding Polly. Polly finds May's weirdness
and propensity toward knife play alluring. There are some mild lesbian
makeout scenes in this movie, but it is hard to find them arousing since
the characters are so utterly...fucked up. Polly convinces May to baby-sit
her cat, Loopy. Here we have such unforgettable lines as "You like pussy,
don't you? Pussy...cat!"
There is sort of a bizarre subplot about eyes and blindness. When lunching
in the park with Adam one day, May notices a group of blind children. She
gets it into her head that she ought to volunteer to help supervise these
kids; there was one blind girl who seemed to always be off by herself, and
May presumably identified with her. She simply goes to the school and
asks to volunteer. No character interviews, no background checks. May's
mannerisms are so bizarre that I certainly would not have let her near any
children I was responsible for. This volunteer effort culminates in a
very disturbing scene involving lots of blood, broken glass, and screaming
children. No police are called, no irate parents call in demanding to
know why their little blind kids were permitted to play around broken
glass. May simply goes home, covered in blood, and proceeds to kill
Polly's cat.
After Loopy's untimely demise via a well-aimed ashtray, May loses any
semblance of self control she may have had. Her mannerisms do become more
confident; she doesn't tremble as much, and she starts aggresively going
after what she wants. What she wants most of all is a friend, a perfect
friend. Yet she doesn't know anyone who is totally perfect, just
people who have one or two perfect parts. You can guess what happens next.
The last twenty minutes or so of the film consist of little May, merrily
tromping through the neighborhood with her bag of surgical tools and
her industrial-size cooler. Luckily, it is Halloween, so everyone
assumes that May is in costume.
Just in case anyone is actually planning to rent this movie, I will
not reveal EXACTLY how it ends. Suffice it to say it is very painful,
very wrong, and very, very ridiculous. If I had to rate this movie
it certainly wouldn't be on any sort of system that uses stars...maybe
it would score three severed heads and a spleen?
This was not so much a scary movie as a funny movie. I can't tell
if the humor was intentional or not, but the DVD case gave no indication
of this with such comments as "Startling, compelling, and truly original!"
and "Shivery and seductive, May is a delicious little creepathon". I
can't imagine anyone actually taking this film seriously. It was
so bizarre, so gross, and so implausible that it became utterly silly.