A Serial Killer's Guide to Life (2019)

 This was on late on Showtime Women (or SHOW) a few weeks ago and I recorded it. I had no idea when I would get to it, but I had some time early in the afternoon on a day off and this is basically a short film lengthened a bit. Or at least it felt like a short film lengthened out to 75 or so minutes. It is about self-help gurus and their variety of mantras for how you can have a better life. You see them all over the place. How to make more money. How to better your body and mind. How you can eat better and exercise better. How you can contribute to nature and "feel nature". How you can react positively to sound. How you can treat yourself better, be a better you. Yada-yada. Anyway, Lou (Katie Brayben) is a young woman with a domineering, demanding mother, expecting total dedication. Lou attends self help seminars, listens to self help gurus like Chuck Knoah (Ben Lloyd-Hughes), who drone on and on about how you should be like him if you want the good life. Her walks outside with ear phones dedicated to programs about how to be a better her eventually leads her to one seminar where she meets Val (Poppy Roe), an intense, chain-smoking woman, very particular in what she says, taciturn to a degree. Val is more than a bit off-putting and doesn't share a lot...kind of an odd choice for someone believing she would be the top self help guru in the globe, or at least has enough confidence to think she would be. Lou is very naive, easy to convince, docile, yearning to find her place in the world, and searching for value and meaning. Val stands straight, seems committed to whatever goals appear in front of her, is unencumbered by restraints. So Lou sees Val as someone attractive because they are ying and yang. The film sort of turns into a British dark comedy road trip, with a heady twist that is right out of "Fight Club". Or at least I immediately thought of the twist in "Fight Club" when "ASKGTL" starts to get into Lou's head and we see her true self emerging, revealing a dark side to her that showed briefly when she picked up a rock with a temporary intent to smack a neighbor in the head with a rock (because she had the "perfect marriage", nice home, domestic and economic success missing from her own life). It is a hint because Val actually will smack people in the skulls with a mallet, dough roller, or if the case is more severe, stab a self-helper with a knife or shoot them in the head with a gun. The tone isn't outrageous as the content would indicate. In fact, I thought the film sort of settled into the mood of Lou, as she is obviously turning a corner, gradually embracing Val, the side of her that was obviously dormant. Perhaps it was the mother, an unfulfilled life, or so much unsatisfying from the endless pursuit from any number of self-helpers who claimed to have the answers but seemed to never provide the results she was searching for. The violence isn't too severe, although the body count builds until Lou and Val come to a crossroads. Once Chuck reveals himself to be anything but someone who has all the answers (has it "all together"), just out for a quick buck, Lou and Val realize their journey is complete. The message of the film--that looking for answers through others won't necessarily bring you to any life discovery--I felt penetrates the ending's need to shock us. When Lou chokes Val, but releases the hold, I think that is symbolic of Lou's willingness to accept the darkside and see what that entails, only succumbing to the gravity of the extremes such a decision involves. However, unlike "Fight Club" where Norton realizes who Pitt really is, Lou never quite understands who Val is, asking for her when paramedics show up to look her over for injury. 2.5/5

***the food for thought I had while watching it is how every day we are one step away from allowing Val to be our guide, if we are not careful. It could be very seductive, losing yourself into violence, allowing that to be acceptable.***