Sunday 11 December 2016

The Voices

Iranian director Marjane Satrapi’s first English-language feature, surrealist black comedy, THE VOICES (2014), stars Ryan Reynolds (Green Lantern, Deadpool) as Jerry, an everyday lonely psycho, who just happens to work in a warehouse that packages bathroom fixtures. He’s off his meds and soon collecting severed heads for his fridge at home. 

Jerry’s schizoid conversations with his dog and cat (the angel/ devil on his mentality’s shoulders), are rendered with CGI as mockingly cute, sketching out his brittle sanity in fantasy terms of live-action Disney meets Tex Avery.


With Gemma Arterton and Anna Kendrick as prime victims, adding further influential voices to Jerry’s confusion, cartoonish domestic scenes of serial killer horror are contrasted with flashbacks to Jerry’s immigrant childhood and abusive parents. Despite the kidnapping finale; and tactical breach by cops at Jerry’s bowling-alley residence, this fable of tragicomic sociopathy finishes with a cheerful dreamscape sing-along playing through the movie credits.


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