Year of Release: 2017
Director: Marc Meyers
Starring: Ross Lynch, Alex Wolff, Anne Heche, Vincent Kartheiser, Tommy Nelson, Harrison Holzer, Dallas Roberts, Miles Robbins, Liam Koeth, Cameron McKendry, Tom Luce, Nancy Telzerow, Dave Sorboro
Genre: Drama
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 6
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Synopsis and Review
"My Friend Dahmer" premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival of 2017, where it was met with warm reviews, on its way to do a very robust run through most of Fall/Winter festivals of that year (it also made appearances at the BFI London Film Festival and the Deauville Film Festival to name but a few). The narrative focuses on the life of teenager Jeffrey Dahmer, who in 1974 is a high school freshman living in Bath, Ohio. We witness his family dynamics with his parents and younger brother, and his fascination with collecting dead animals, and the experiments he does with them. A few years later and now a high school senior, Jeffrey who typically flies under the radar, catches the attention of a few colleagues, when he imitates the speech and gestures of one os his mother's friends, who has cerebral palsy (an Interior Designer friends with his mom Joyce). He becomes a bit of a class clown, known for his fearlessness in portraying people with disabilities and for illustrating people with erratic behavior, which charms some of his high school colleagues, who even form a "Dahmer Fan Club". On the home front, things are disintegrating for Jeffrey, whose mother has a chronic mental illness that starts bleeding off into her relationship with his father, with frequent arguments taking place. Jeffrey starts drinking more and more, and in the meantime he also becomes obsessed with a jogger he sees frequently near his house. He starts stalking him with a baseball bat, but never attacks him. In the meantime, Jeffrey graduates, while his mom takes his younger brother Dave to live with relatives in Wisconsin, leaving him alone at home.
The number of films and TV series focused on serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer have been steadily increasing. David Jacobson's "Dahmer" was a good showcase for Jeremy Renner playing the title role, and since then "Raising Jeffrey Dahmer" directed by Rich Ambler, and in particular the highly successful "Dahmer - Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story" miniseries from Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan (featuring Evan Richards in the title role), have kept the name of this infamous individual in the public consciousness. "My Friend Dahmer" opts for a different approach when it comes to the story of this individual/character: it tracks his teenage years, and how he progressively morphed into the person who would soon become a well known killer. The director successfully illustrates how Jeffrey is perpetually in a world of his own, even when surrounded by others who try to embrace and celebrate his idiosyncrasies. He comes across as someone alienated from the world, and mostly fascinated by nefarious experiences with animals (dead and alive), married with a pulsating desire for men and to also perform clinical experiences with them. The film walks a fine line between capturing a nuanced psychological portrait of this individual and also giving into the more gratuitous aspect of portraying his violent acts (which the director smartly refrains from doing so). While Jeffrey captures the lion share of screen time and attention, the supporting cast gets very little to do in the film. For instance, the fan club devoted to Jeffrey, and in particular its members, could have benefited from having some additional screen time or at least more scenes capturing their interactions with him, but aside from a particularly tense moment towards the end of the film with Alex Wolff's Derf character, it's all rather bland. The same thing happens with the way his family life is illustrated: not much attention is given to it, or to Jeffrey's relationship with his parents. The cast is uniformly solid, with Ross Lynch, Alex Wolff, Anne Heche and Dallas Roberts all crafting solid performances. The production team is equally solid, featuring the cinematography from Daniel Katz, production design from Jennifer Klide, and costumes from Carla Shivener. It's a subdued film worth watching.
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