The graphic, and completely unrated sex is mere foreplay for the violence in rising star Brady Corbet’s twisted turn as a killer-in-the-making.
Imagine if you happened to spend a month on vacation with Ted Bundy before he became an infamous serial sex-murderer. That’s the sick-to-your-stomach feeling I got watching the brilliant young actor Brady Corbet, 24, as the title character at the April 2 New York premiere of the new IFC Films’ thriller, Simon Killer.
Brady’s ‘Simon’ is an apparently heartsick youth shipped off for a post grad European walkabout after a rough breakup. It’s not long before his wandering leads him headlong into a Paris brothel and an explicitly shot affair with a prostitute whom he manipulates into a scheme to blackmail Johns for cash.
What is so gripping about Simon Killer is the slow reveal of this seemingly ordinary young man’s dark nature. Director Antonio Campos, in a script co-written by Brady (a triple threat who also moonlights as director), skillfully builds tension in every passing scene as we begin to realize Simon is completely unbound by any semblance of conscience. The pleasure of the film is as twisted as the plot itself: it puts a festering pit in your stomach as you anxiously await the inevitable moment of violence promised by the title.
Beyond the suspense, sex, and jarring but catchy soundtrack accompanying the shocking visuals, what is unique and true about the movie, and Corbet’s performance – particularly for anyone who has known a person without any moral tether – is the honest to life portrait of a sociopath. As Brady told me at the premeiere’s after party in the darkened recesses of the Jane Ballroom - after we all loosened up a bit on SVEDKA vodka:
“This is a coming of age story of a sociopath. Simon isn’t a fully formed killer, or anything else. “
Unlike ordinary Hollywood profiles of evil minds, Corbet’s character isn’t a stone faced, glassy eyed menace, deftly manipulating victims and then taking what he wants with calculated precision. Simon is a mere nascent pup of a psycho, in the awkward process of self discovery: he’s a coward, self pitying, fragile, wounded, and almost completely rudderless other than his need to mask his emptiness by manipulating others.
All this points to something poignantly true and bleak about the roughly 2 percent among us who could medically qualify as lacking a conscience: It’s not that sociopaths like Simon are without feelings – they are only without feelings for others. Simon Killer does a riveting job of unmasking the pathetic, sniveling, neurotic and self deceiving core of a person whose only ambition is the compulsive need for perverse self gratification left by the vacuum of true sentiment for others.
Look for Simon Killer opening nationwide April 12.
– Gino Orlandini
- More Movie Reviews:
- Brad Pitt Turns Into Violent Psychopath In 'Killing Them Softly'
- 'Skyfall': Bond Is Back – Top 5 Reasons To See 007′s Return
- 5 Reasons To Go See The New Erotic Comedy 'The Sessions'
No comments:
Post a Comment