The Voices

Jerry (Ryan Reynolds) works in the Shipping department of a company that makes bathroom fixtures. He's eager, friendly, awkward, and has a crush on Fiona (Gemma Arterton) in Accounting. Jerry also hears voices coming from his cat, Mr. Whiskers, and his dog, Bosco. Because Jerry isn't taking his court-ordered meds. And then Jerry kills Fiona (accidentally?), and things go downhill rapidly.

The Voices is directed by Marjane Satrapi, who wrote Persepolis (and directed the film based on it). Netflix described it as a "dark comedy". I didn't laugh a lot, but I can see it, the arguments with the pets, the wide difference between how Jerry perceives his home life and how everyone else would see it (including Jerry in the brief intervals where he actually takes his pills).

In Tucker and Dale versus Evil, the movie takes all those cliches you see in horror movies about murderous rednecks, and offers these explanations that show in this case it's just misunderstandings. That guy was going to use his favorite ax as a topic of conversation, but he has social anxiety so he just stood there breathing heavy. The Voices does this in reverse, where most of the film is from Jerry's unmedicated perspective, and things seem mostly under control. When he takes his medications, or his coworker Lisa (Anna Kendrick) comes to visit, suddenly you see the apartment is a disaster. Jerry hasn't cleaned up the mess from disposing of the body. The lighting in the apartment is sickly and pale, like the air is so thick with stench and decay it absorbs light. The movie shifts to a horror film look.

Reynolds takes that goofball charm he has most of the time, and dials up the awkwardness of it, so that he appears as someone who just doesn't grasp how to interact with people. In theory, maybe he knows how it works, but the nuances elude him. Of course, then I feel bad for Jerry, but he's killing people, and should I feel bad for him, and on and on. Fiona, Lisa, and Allison (Ella Smith), a trio of friends in Accounting, don't get a ton of screen time, but they form a fairly believable group of work friends. Lisa likes Jerry, the other two are trying to be supportive friends who think Jerry is mostly OK, but aren't quite sure what to make of some of the things he says. You can see them running the math in their heads on whether this guy is safe or not.

The very end was bizarre, I wasn't sure what to make of it. I'd probably just leave it at the point the pets say their good-byes.