DVD Review – The Voices
2 min read
The Voices, starring Ryan Reynolds, is just a whole bunch of crazy, with a bit of crazy to boot. Jerry (Reynolds) tries his best to be a likeable guy, but he always comes off a little weird. At a work party, he falls hopelessly in love with Fiona (Gemma Arterton), who doesn’t reciprocate his feelings even in the slightest. But one night, after Fiona stands him up on a date, he sees her in the pouring rain. He stops to pick her up, with the promise of taking her to have a bite to eat at a restaurant on the outskirts of town. But suddenly a deer comes through the windscreen of the car, and to save the animal from suffering, Jerry slits its throat. This doesn’t go down well with Fiona, and after chasing her through the woods, he accidentally slips and falls on top of her, with the knife ending up in her.
Back home he has a cat and a dog, both of which who speak to him (or so he thinks.) Mr Whiskers, Jerry’s cat, has a thick Scottish accent and a desire to kill, and Bosco, his dog, is a kind and loving canine who desperately wants Jerry and him to be good boys. When Jerry comes home after killing Fiona, Mr Whiskers convinces him to go back to get the body and dispose of it, and with the fear of people finding out looming over him, Jerry complies but in his dazed and unmediated state he leaves pieces behind.
As Jerry’s life begins to implode, the audience are given sneak peaks at what Jerry’s life actually looks like, opposed to how Jerry sees it. His pristine and organised apartment is actually filled with rubbish, dead rats and animal faeces. And after the dismemberment of Fiona, it’s filled with blood too. But Jerry doesn’t notice any of this: he sees the beautiful world he imagines.
Ultimately, Jerry is lonely but when he strikes up a relationship with another girl from work, Lisa (Anna Kendrick) his feelings of isolation begin to lift. This is until she surprises him at home. You can just imagine what Mr Whiskers is telling him to do.
The Voices is just weird, but in the best way possible, and Reynolds just brings so much weird to Jerry’s character. Having spent a lot of time watching him in romantic comedies, it’s exciting to see the kind of range and depth in which he is capable of conveying. He has the nice guy down pat, and even when he is murdering people, his inability to stop crying or saying sorry just, well, it makes you laugh.
There is a sort of dark and twisted humour that The Voices has that so many films miss the mark on. The combination of a very, very sorry serial killer, talking murderous cats, and a bleak and boring town makes for some damn good comedy.
