Good Films People Might Have Missed This Year 2: Voices

The thing about black comedy, a genre that has interested me for some time now, is that it's black! Sorry, I briefly got sucked back in time to an episode of Red Dwarf; a sci-fi film series from the 1990s that was neither Black Comedy or has anything to do with this review. 

So anyway, the thing about Black Comedy is that it walks a razor edge; the subject matter it touches on might be grim, and nasty and ultimately brutal, yet in the same breath it tries to make humour of these things. It's ballsy or stupid, or both or neither. It is most definitely not for everyone. Did I mention that Voices, Directed by Marjane Satrapi (Of previous Persepolis fame) and featuring Ryan Reynolds, is a black comedy? I should probably mention that soon. Moving on from the odd start to this article lets actually talk Voices; In which Jerry, a severely mentally ill man with a 'talking' cat and dog tries to find love and happiness only for it to all go horribly wrong in exactly the ways you might expect from looking at this poster for the film to the right.

The trouble with black comedy is that it is very, very hard to get right; and plenty of the time Voices doesn't hit that perfect summit of black comedy, that 'you laugh but why are you laughing oh dear god' moments. It nearly get there; it gets nasty, it gets funny, but never both in complete harmony at the same time, never quite there. 

Jerry's cat and dog, who talk to him and in fact are his only friends, occupy the devil and angel on his shoulder; only the cat has more of a nihilism vibe while the dog relentlessly believes in happiness for his master. Mr Whiskers the cat is angry and ginger and Scottish (Inspired by Trainspotting maybe?) and Bosco the dog sounds oddly like a man might sound who is clinging to hope in the face of extreme pessimism, which thanks to Mr Whiskers, he is! And together they reflect Jerry's deteriorating mental state; you know, just in case the talking head on the living room table is more of a subtle hint. Incidentally, Mr Whiskers and Bosco are also played by Ryan Reynolds. It makes sense; they are Jerry's voices. 

Together, the cat and dog fight for Jerry's soul, along with more and more heads as the show goes on. Eventually, the film cuts to credits with a delightfully 'Happy happy' song that in no way reflects what has actually happened in the last 104 minutes of the film.

Nothing to see here. 

Really the film is more about Jerry's delusion, about his mental state and the world he lives in. Most of the time when he is not taking his medication he lives in a world where he goes to work in bright pink overalls and his dog and cat talk to him in the decent apartment he has for himself. He does well at work, he goes to meetings. He takes psychiatric evaluations (more on those later) while trying to find love. in the shape of one Fiona from accounting (Gemma Atherton)

But he takes one pill, made to counter his schizophrenic tendencies and the world suddenly becomes much, much worse; it becomes the real world. His apartment is neglected; dog and cat turds alike litter the floor. Ominous looking sandwich boxes full of ..? pile up in this dark and cramped apartment, while the dog and cat lie on the floor, as depressed as animals in the circus. This is reality, or more accurately, it isn't reality, as he wants it anyway. It is his personal nightmare, a nightmare in which he is completely alone in the world.

So Jerry takes the conscious decision to flush these drugs, the ones that take him back to his friends, and he's happier for it, of course he is! You feel a strange sense of relief watching it; thank god he bloody escaped and got back to his nice apartment with his friends. Maybe they can find redemption together. Mental state doesn't come into it at that point. Given the choice between sane hell and insane heaven, what would you pick? 

Of course flushing the drugs has its own consequences, and Jerry's mental state becomes increasingly under strain from his pet friends, and he becomes more and more vulnerable in his pursuit of love. I'm trying not to spoil the film here, in the unlikely case you do take up my suggestion to see it (by the way, give it a look!), but I think it's fair enough to say this: It's a black comedy for a reason. The genre isn't known for it's delightful musical numbers despite this film having one. (Apparently there are two; I don't remember there being two. Go and watch it and tell me how many musical numbers there are.) 

But it wasn't in the watching of this film that I grew as much to like it as I did but in the thinking about it afterward in the days and weeks where it lingered on the edge of my thoughts persistently because above the okay jokes and the gross out humour, Voices is a tragedy, that speaks of a failure of society; the kind of which America has had more then it's fair share of. 

Lets rewind: Jerry when he is young kills his mother; his mentally ill mother, who asks him to. Whether this moment of his mother telling him to is in part delusion or not is hard to tell and essentially beside the point (although it could be argued to have a massive and negative effect on his future decisions); in chronological terms we have a big gap up until the start of this film, where Jerry first starts talking to Fiona. 

If we take Jerry's reality to be even a portion as bad as it was in those few moments when he actually takes his medication, then we can surmise this: He killed his mother. He was taken in, 'treated'. He was then presumably dropped into this apartment tacked onto the side of an abandoned bowling alley and left to fend for himself; no friends, clearly no help barring compulsory visits to the government appointed psychiatrist, judging from the state of his apartment. And his psychiatrist! His bloody psychiatrist!

His psychiatrist who rolls out the same five question list every time Jerry visits her; a psychiatrist who's job apparently is not to help with mental issues but instead to just be vaguely sure that her client is alright before ticking some boxes. When Jerry says he is not taking his medication our ever helpful psychiatrist urges him to take the medication; and that's about it. She is just another unhelpful outlet for Jerry; that the voices in his head provide more helpful feedback on his mental well being then a psychiatrist who even in her own words gave in to general apathy years ago says a lot about the quality of Jerry's very threadbare support network. 

The end credits song that proves everything turned
out absolutely fine. 

This sense follows a trend; there is no-one to really care about Jerry in the film, no-one who knows his problems well enough to help him. Even Fiona and Lisa (Anna Kendrick), Jerry's two targets of affection in the film, aren't so much friends to Jerry as targets for Jerry's futile attempts to integrate into society. There isn't one person who Jerry can actually look to for help, and this systemic failure makes the events of the film inevitable in a strange way; this failure of mental health care lets Jerry drop into the darkest recesses and lays the path for everything in Voices that follows. 

Could he have ever been saved? Could he have saved himself? Who knows. But in any case, Voices is an interesting little film about delusion and a variety of other things. It is funny in parts, horrific in parts, both in parts, and tragedy throughout. Oh, I didn't even get back to Bosco again; a dog who is just a voice Jerry invented, losing hope in his master just as Jerry begins to lose hope in a happy ending. 

Dark Comedy, indeed.