Me You Madness

This a strange, unnecessary comedy that's not funny. Me You Madness mostly feels like a collection of personal rants from writer, director, and star Louise Linto mapped onto an uninspired serial killer comedy. Within the first 10 minutes, Linton makes it clear that she views her film as the "woman version of American Psycho," but her film is absolutely nothing like Mary Harron's provocative, polarizing, brutal, problematic, terrifying, and compelling adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis's novel. Where Herron's film arguably has inherent critiques of 1980s materialism, vapidity, extremism (in this case violence), sexism, and masculinity, Linton's "woman version" here doesn't thrill, terrify, or critique. The violence is surprisingly tame and uncreative, despite lots of dialogue dedicated to how the film is quite the opposite. And while tastes will vary, half of the film seems intent on finding reasons to show off Linton herself, in all her different and expensive costumes and dresses and lingerie. Many scenes simply devolve into Linton dancing (often erotically), working out, or showering. Also, there's a weirdly high degree of Asian fetishism and exoticization in the film. Of the very few side characters in the film, 2 of them are Asian, both are confidants, one a manicurist named Tien-Ting (Jimmy Dinh), the other a lover named Yu Yan (Shuya Chang). In every scene with these two Linton shows off her Mandarin and "downness" with Asian peoples. It feels odd and disingenuous.

In many specific moments and in totality, it's hard not to see this movie as simply a poorly-conceived, acted, and executed dream project of a very wealthy white woman in real life who has a film producer husband. Teens and adults should look elsewhere for laughs and thrills.