(2003)

review by:

8-02-03

Written and Directed by: Lucky Mckee Starring: Angela Bettis, Jeremy Sisto, Anna Faris

A very strange girl can't make any real friends, so she befriends a doll her mother made. Years later, she's just a bit nutty, and gets pushed over the edge by the man she loves. Then May goes out to make a friend of her own... The indie movies are, from now on anyway, mostly Burnstorm's territory, but I just had to take this one. Wow. Just...wow. May opens with a quick shot of a girl screaming and bleeding from her eye, and you know already that this will be a "different" movie. This is one of those films that expertly gets us to love the main character, even as she's descending into madness and killing people. May is very reminiscent of a Tim Burton movie, but it is more "Tim Burton" than he is himself. Where said director produces more popular, family friendly "weirdo" films, McKee uses the same strange vibe and takes it where we (well...me) wanted to see it go for a while. Now, I don't mean in any way to imply he's ripping off Burton's style or anything, but I feel a similarity in May's overall tone that would make Tim grin...probably. Using great acting, writing, and direction, Lucky McKee gets us to empathize with May, even when she's going full wacko. May is an excellent and twisted love story, complete with cats-in-freezers and rude blind children. I don't want to spoil anything else for you, so go rent May and prepare for oddity...

AKA: How to Make Friends and Dismember People

Rating