Me You Madness, 2021.
Written and Directed by Louise Linton.
Starring Louise Linton, Ed Westwick, Shuya Chang, Joel Michaely, Grant Goodman, Gwen Van Dam, and Seth Coltan.
SYNOPSIS:
A young thief cases an architectural dream house in Malibu, not realizing it is the home of an eccentric female serial killer.
It takes one hell of an ego on behalf of writer/director/star Louise Linton to immediately start breaking the fourth wall propping Me You Madness up as a female-centric American Psycho while deriding Hollywood’s lack of innovation and originality about an hour later. Louise Linton is rich hedge fund owner Catherine Black, who also happens to more concerningly be a narcissistic fashion-obsessed sociopath with various mental health conditions (the movie offensively shrugs all of this off at the expense of terrible jokes of her proving she can keep it together around her psychiatrist) that’s a serial killer when not paying attention to the stock market. The movie is so lost in itself and its aggressively annoying tone of meta-humor, lowbrow jokes, and a self-absorbed protagonist that her reasons for becoming a serial killer don’t even match up to a synopsis that states she kills men because she has no need for them. Nowhere does that have anything to do with the plot, nor is it the reason she is a homicidal maniac.
I truly don’t know where to begin tearing Me You Madness to shreds, but I do know that this is the first legitimately horrendous movie of 2021. There is not a single redeemable quality here, and you almost get the feeling Louise Linton knows it as she writes Catherine as a megafan of 1980s one-hit-wonder tunes so music can drown out how insufferable this all is. Think of your favorite pop song from that decade (popular songs and not artists) and I guarantee it plays at some point here. There is so much damn music the ending credits have abridged it all to titles and artists.
The story itself sees our detestable protagonist falling for a handsome millennial (this movie really hates millennials by the way) named Tyler (Ed Westwick) who due to her advanced psychological intellect instantly figures out he is only responding to her roommate advertisement (she’s really only looking for someone to look after her lavish Malibu home while she’s gone on business trips) to her so she can swindle some luxurious items such as a sports car. It’s not long before Catherine struggles to make a decision of whether she wants to kill him or be with him.
Visually, this is a garish experience that has the pristine look of a romantic comedy meshed with neon lighting that simply comes across ugly despite clearly wanting to come across as stylistic. About the only nice thing that can be said about the movie is that the Malibu home sure is fancy and I wouldn’t mind living there. It’s hard to even say that the two leads have chemistry considering the plot dilemma feels forced before running in circles.
And my God does Me You Madness chase itself for its final 40 minutes that mostly just seem like a threat the movie is never going to end. It’s like watching a Tom and Jerry cartoon only something set in the real world that doesn’t abuse all logic but the rules of its own inner workings. Even basic continuity errors that exist in every movie are blown up to sizable proportions here (a character has his hand sliced open but is bandaged up in the next shot). It’s a one-note movie that is never clever, amusing, entertaining, or anything less than fucking irritating. But if you are the one person out there that wants to watch a woman play with a severed head and pretend it’s eating her out for comedy, go right ahead. There is madness all right here, I almost went fucking mad watching it.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ / Movie: ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
