“Did you feed me a bunch of dudes?” a character inquires shrilly in Louise Linton’s grating black comedy Me You Madness. Yes, indeed, the wealthy female protagonist exacts revenge on the male species by dismembering its delinquents and feeding their testicles to her girlfriend. This is about as subtle as things get in this screechy, repetitive, indulgent, excruciatingly campy excuse for a satire. Don’t come looking for laughs or gore, as it sorely lacks both. Perhaps the worst thing about the writer/director/star’s feature is that it basks in the excess it purports to condemn, confident that pounding the viewer into submission is the way to go, in addition to ending on a hypocritical note that defies everything that’s occurred up to that point.
Catherine (Linton) is an uber-successful hedge fund manager. She wears gold boots, curses vehemently, knows every language known to man, eats live spiders (!), and speaks like she’s been studying The Devil Wears Prada her entire life. She’s the epitome of shallowness: luxuriating in her “materialistic, narcissistic preaching misanthrope” lifestyle, all the while being highly self-aware. “This is a woman’s tale,” she says, “so shut the f*ck up, turn off your phones and enjoy the movie.” This turns out to be a challenge.
“…exacts revenge on males by dismembering its delinquents and feeding their testicles to her girlfriend.”
Catherine is addicted to, among many things, sex and violence. The unaware thief Tyler (Ed Westwick) is lured into her web under the pretense of renting her glass palace for a measly $1,500 a month (in Malibu? That’s where the film lost me). Little does Tyler know that Catherine sees him casing the house and watches him converse with his accomplice on her hidden cameras. She then drugs him for no discernible reason, introduces him to her stunning girlfriend, Yu Yan (Shuya Chang), and they engage in a very PG-13 threesome.
Catherine is an American psycho, you see. Her freezer is filled with decapitated male bodies. Yet her encounter with the doofus Tyler may have changed her. She develops a soft spot for him. When they have a falling out, and he ends up stealing her car, she ensures that he brings it back. The last 40 minutes of Me You Madness turns into a protracted game of cat-and-mouse, involving a dance-off, a profession of love, and a cross-bow.
"…ferocious devotion [from] its star/filmmaker..."
