{"id":327829,"date":"2026-03-13T14:28:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T14:28:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/327829\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T14:28:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T14:28:11","slug":"charlie-day-and-allison-williams-in-mystery-dramedy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/327829\/","title":{"rendered":"Charlie Day and Allison Williams in Mystery Dramedy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tSpeaking to the very cops he\u2019d called to report that someone\u2019s tried to kill him, Jimmy (Charlie Day<\/a>) suddenly grows panicked. He wants to plead the fifth; he wants to call a lawyer; he\u2019s terrified they\u2019re accusing him of \u201cattempted self-murder.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe police, understandably, are baffled. The normal term for that is \u201csuicide,\u201d and in any case it\u2019s not anything they\u2019d arrest him for. But Jimmy\u2019s choice of wording is the key to Peter Warren\u2019s directorial debut Kill Me, premiering at SXSW.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tKill Me\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tThe Bottom Line<\/p>\n

\tDark and twisty.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tVenue: SXSW Film Festival (Narrative Spotlight)
Cast: Charlie Day, Allison Williams, Giancarlo Esposito, Aya Cash, Jessica Harper, David Krumholtz, Tony Cavalero
Director-screenwriter: Peter Warren
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t1 hour 45 minutes\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\tTo the rest of the world, it may seem obvious that Jimmy cut his own wrists. Jimmy, however, can only understand what\u2019s happened to him as a potential murder, even if it means eventually, reluctantly acknowledging himself as a suspect. <\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s intriguing framing for what could otherwise have been a bleakly earnest drama, conceptualizing depression as an assassin more lethal than any serial killer and one\u2019s own psychology as a mystery more unsolvable than any cold case \u2014 with a bracingly morbid sense of humor, to boot. If its exploration of these ideas is ultimately too incomplete to feel fully satisfying, its performances are strong enough to draw attention throughout.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn fairness to everyone who\u2019s not Jimmy, the evidence against him seems crystal clear. The film opens with Jimmy in his bathtub, expelling his last bits of energy to place a 911 call. (That the bathroom looks so dingy he could almost be in a Saw movie is one of many clever production design choices from Ashley Cook.) From his family \u2014 which includes his sister, Alice (Aya Cash), his mother (Jessica Harper) and his stepfather (Michael Flynn) \u2014 we learn he has a long history of mental illness \u2014 notably a very similar incident four years earlier. From the cops, we hear there was no sign of anyone else in his apartment, which, they note, locks from the inside. Not even Jimmy, once he begins frantically scouring his place for forensic evidence, is able to prove otherwise.<\/p>\n

\n\tJimmy, however, is resolute that he doesn\u2019t remember doing it. And anyway, why would he? He can\u2019t think of a reason \u2014 even as his family points out that he\u2019s been especially down lately, even as he admits to his therapist (Giancarlo Esposito<\/a>\u2019s Dr. Singer) that he\u2019s stopped taking his meds and even as he\u2019s quick to come up with heartbreakingly mundane justifications for why other people might wish him dead. (Among them: his ex-girlfriend Sarah, played by Sam Rothermel, for not jogging enough, for embarrassing himself at her work party and for not being able to get his dick up that one time.)<\/p>\n

\n\tKill Me\u2019s tone veers between dark comedy and even darker drama, and in its goofier moments benefits from Day\u2019s knack for playing guys in the middle of a shrill and wide-eyed freakout. The script, also written by Warren, includes some memorably sharp and funny lines \u2014 I laughed at Jimmy, in his initial call to 911, worrying that his blood might stain his bathtub (\u201cYeah, I think it might,\u201d responds the dispatcher, Allison Williams<\/a>\u2018 Margot, after a beat) and his insistence that his dirty apartment is not him living in filth but him living in evidence.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut the role also allows Day to go in sadder, more serious directions, as Jimmy oscillates between his insistent certainty that he\u2019s been targeted and his overwhelming fear that the only person he truly has to fear is himself. Following him through those many mood swings is Margot, a wan, numb soul who has her own reasons for refusing to abandon him. The romantic spark that catches between them is unexpectedly sweet, even hopeful, even as we never lose the uneasy sense that they\u2019re clinging to each other the way shipwreck survivors cling to driftwood.<\/p>\n

\n\tKill Me does a fine job of keeping the viewer guessing whether Jimmy\u2019s really onto something (he does eventually come into some clues that could support his theories) or whether he is, as Alice puts it, living \u201cin a Sherlock Holmes fantasy where you just sail on an ocean of delusion.\u201d But while it understands Jimmy\u2019s pain on a bone-deep level, the film occasionally seems almost as cruel to Jimmy as he is to himself. <\/p>\n

\n\tOver and over, Jimmy is confronted by suggestions that he might not be the only one who suspects he might be better off dead. There\u2019s a suicide victim\u2019s son (David Krumholtz), who spits that \u201cThe most selfless act [my dad] ever did was killing himself so my mom and I could move on.\u201d Another suicide victim\u2019s father talks of how his daughter finally \u201cfound peace,\u201d of the sort Jimmy complains eludes him. The deep concern Jimmy\u2019s loved ones have for him is clear. The affection they feel for him is less so.<\/p>\n

\n\tArguably these are honest if harsh reflections of the way Jimmy sees his place in the real world, and a sharp turn into sentimentality wouldn\u2019t suit a film as prickly as Kill Me anyway. But without any real emotional resolution, the movie ends up feeling incomplete \u2014 a bit, perhaps, like a hit job that leaves the victim still gasping for air.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Speaking to the very cops he\u2019d called to report that someone\u2019s tried to kill him, Jimmy (Charlie Day)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[65051,154965,156,176544,409,111,139,69,176545,176546,176547,176548],"class_list":["post-327829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-allison-williams","tag-charlie-day","tag-entertainment","tag-giancarlo-esposito","tag-movies","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-south-by-southwest","tag-sxsw-2026","tag-sxsw-film-festival","tag-sxsw-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=327829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/327829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=327829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=327829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=327829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}