We rented “May” because Dustin’s friend said it was a good movie, and it looked like a strange horror movie (and really, who doesn’t love a strange horror movie from time to time?!). After two viewings, because the first was just too weird to absorb fully, Dustin and I ended up buying it. Two years have passed, and I am still showing it to any willing victims we can find.
It opens with May (Angela Bettis), sitting in front of a mirror, screaming and holding her right eye. Both her face and hands are covered in blood. Then it cuts to a very artsy scene transition featuring falling dolls and flying fabrics. And, in a classic Tarentino fashion, we are taken to her childhood. A childhood where a young May has a lazy eye, a pirate patch to help correct it, an OCD mother, and no friends. So, her kind of creepy mother gives May, her first and favorite doll, Susie, along with this advice: “If you can’t find a friend…make one.” If you can’t tell, that line will be of importance later. What’s creepy, is that Susie is in a glass case and her mother won’t even let May play with it. And for the record; Susie looks crazy. I would never give my daughter a doll that looks like that. Especially after this movie.
Jump back to adult May, before the eye thing goes down. Her lazy eye is pulled forward with glasses now, and she’s sewing while talking to Susie about a boy; the perfect boy. One without any flaws. That boy is a young mechanic named Adam (Jeremy Sisto), who is an art school dropout. She works at an Animal Hospital down the street from where he works. The receptionist, who has a thing for May, is a ditsy girl named Polly (Ana Farris) who doesn’t understand a word the foreign veterinarian says. Some love triangle, eh?
And, as you can imagine, growing up with a lazy eye, no friends, a crazy mother, and a doll as your best friend can mess ya up. May obviously has some social disorders; she speaks very quietly, if at all in some cases, and has a shaky, mouse-like shyness about her. Although comical at times, it can be excruciating to watch her shy and awkward social interactions. And we soon learn that she is very inexperienced at any sort of relationship and almost painfully naïve.
My biggest problem with the movie is also the coolest part; when she snaps. She has slowly been pulling out of her weird shell the whole movie, but when she goes crazy, it only takes one scene. Then again, she never seemed sane in the first place, which might be why the movie is good at all. But Crazy May is completely different from the socially awkward, scared May. That’s not bad… but in the end, she seems to slip back into the old, quiet, strange May.
Despite its problems, you should see it. With me, if ya can. Because, one of my favorite things about this movie, is getting to see newbies reactions to the different levels of weird. You’ll know what I mean. Just give May a shot (and promise me that you won’t show up at my place on Halloween with a red cooler).