Watched: Killer Joe
Observations:
- This film was deeply uncomfortable to watch. I won’t go into detail (so you don’t need to skip this, at least), but every trigger warning under the sun should be applied to this film.
- There’s one key scene that fulfilled, for me, three functions - a hook for this kind of marketing, the moment when the titular Joe went from cool and calculating to outright insane, and Matthew McConaughey’s comeback moment.
- Seriously - McConaughey is mesmerising in this film, and is really given the room to act in a way that the rest of the cast aren’t. I think that’s deliberate, though - in a film like this, a quieter handling of the role could have easily relegated Joe to a secondary character - the Big Bad lurking in the background - but his charisma fills the screen when you least expect it.
- The hardest thing for me to parse was the relationship between Joe and Dottie, and that mostly comes down to a lack of understanding regarding her intelligence; that said, I suspect that was supposed to be ambiguous. (See: the ending.)
- I found myself laughing at Thomas Haden Church at some really inappropriate moments. But that happens most of the time.
- Honestly, I’m not sure I can recommend this, because it’s harrowing to watch, but it’s also a great piece of filmmaking that relishes in its madness in a way that most crime films don’t. Watch it if you have the stomach, but if you have even the slightest sensitivity to violence, consider giving this one a miss.
