Let's face it: most successful commercial directors treat their earliest work as throwaway fodder, an excuse to learn their way around a camera and crew before investing anything personal into it. Beyond that, it's tasteless and tacky as any kind of critic to take pot-shots at any student film without being left humbled by the "Oh yeah? Well, let's see you try it" retort. And yet
I Killed My Lesbian Wife, Hung Her on a Meathook, and Now I Have a Three Picture Deal at Disney, notoriously disowned directorial debut of the current Oscar winner and man-who-will- be-Batfleck (man, gaffes were easier to live down pre-internet), is a film that seems to be begging to be hated, caveats and all. There are few who likely won't. Even Ben Affleck. Actually, make that especially Ben Affleck.
Maybe it's the title - insipidly, smugly provocative in a way that sneers "I'm a STUDENT. I'm an ARTIST. You wouldn't UNDERSTAND". Maybe it's the script - a grab bag of tired film industry clichés, as if cobbled together from the outtakes of Robert Altman's The Player, then paraphrased by a tittering teenager at a roller disco. Maybe it's the way it wears its filmic devices on its sleeve, like ticking boxes on a class rubric (the film opens with a shot of the director noisily chowing down on a bloody, rare steak. Hark: a metaphor!), or has the thematic depth of your average M&Ms package. And not peanut M&Ms either - regular, uninspired kind. We can chalk the nauseatingly grainy film stock up to no-budget school equipment and age. But the lazily cross- cutting editing, and nonsensically jittery camera-work (at least three times, characters stray out of the frame, and the camera simply forgets to follow them, leaving us with protracted close-ups of chins or shoulders)? That'd be a film school F for sure. But hey - at least he maintains the 180 degree rule.
Theoretically, the film is meant to function as a black comedy, but its unbelievable deluge of misogynist garbage and haphazard violence without even a whiff of salient critique or intent is enough to warrant a heartfelt metaphorical punch in its metaphorical meathead face. At 16 minutes, the short seems to take hours to put itself out of its misery. Speaking of, if audience misery was Affleck's objective, he's cast perfectly. As the obnoxious, woman-hating filmmaker, star/co-writer (speaking of nepotism
) Jay Lacopo's Jerry-Seinfeld-meets-Joe-Pesci impression makes his bipolar(??) schtick about as funny as having a board slowly nailed to your hand. Co-star Karla Montana's performance is about as flat as said board, but compared to Lacopo, she's practically award-worthy. Indeed, apart from the occasional lines of industry-lampooning pseudo-snappy banter (and by occasional I mean three) enough to raise the shadow of a chuckle, there's really nothing in store but grating, vitriolic braying. It's good for a derisive laugh or two, but honestly? You'd be better off watching Gigli.
Yup. I went there.
For a film wherein the only discernible theme is 'being a filmmaker allows you entitled wish-fulfilment', it's ironic that Ben Affleck's most fervent wish would be for it to be buried forever. Appropriately, as my attention strayed watching I Killed My Lesbian Wife, Hung Her on a Meathook, and Now I Have a Three Picture Deal at Disney – Ben Affleck's dirty laundry – I began folding my clean laundry.
I've never been so invested in my laundry.
-2/10
