Extreme violence

The Killer Inside Me
18, Nationwide

Michael Winterbottom’s latest film has already caused outrage and charges of misogyny, and while I did not like it at all, and did spend a good portion of the time hiding my head in my hands moaning, ‘Oh, sweet Jesus, please make it stop,’ I can’t say it’s a bad film. I want to say it’s a bad film. I long to say it’s a bad film and that, as a woman who once marched to reclaim the night — even though the night never marched for me — I was both repulsed and offended by the explicit, prolonged violence. But? Although this isn’t my sort of movie, and I wouldn’t have paid to see it in a million years, and I’m not glad to have seen it now, violence against women does happen in real life and where is cinema if it cannot show real life? After all, there are only so many times you can watch Sex and the City 2 (barely once, now I think about it. In fact, if you can get away without seeing it at all, you’re pretty much ahead of the game).

The Killer Inside Me is based on Jim Thompson’s 1952 pulp fiction novel and stars Casey Affleck as Lou Ford, the deputy sheriff of a small Texan town, who, on the surface, is polite, trustworthy, agree-able and couldn’t do more to help, ma’am. No one would peg him for the sociopathic killer he is, although we certainly know something is awry. In a drawling voice-over he admits it’s all an act, that no one knows the real him, so we are bracing ourselves from the start. The tension is phenomenal, plus Affleck’s performance is chillingly convincing; mesmerising.