A young woman with a lazy eye has a horrific experience with first love in 2002's May. There's also a creepy doll and many references to Frankenstein but this film mostly put me in mind of Roman Polanski's Repulsion. Like that film, it's anchored by an exceptional performance from its lead actress, in this case Angela Bettis.
The doll works as a metaphor for the young woman, May's, sexual repression. Other kids won't talk to her, we see in flashbacks to May's childhood, so her mother gives her the doll, Susie, in compensation. However, she's instructed to keep the doll in its glass case and not to remove it under any circumstances. As May starts to crack up over the course of the film, cracks start to appear in the glass case.
She works as a veterinary assistant at an animal hospital where the secretary, Polly (Anna Faris), doesn't disguise her lusting for May. But May's fixated on her neighbour, Adam (Jeremy Sisto), whose hands she considers beautiful.
Like Repulsion, May does a good job blurring the line between what might be May's derangement and what might be her bad luck in meeting so many assholes. Adam's character is a slightly implausible form of jerk who makes gory, independent horror movies but completely backs out of a relationship with May when she bites his lip during foreplay.
Bettis' performance is a little more over the top than Catherine Deneuve's in Repulsion and I'd say Polanski's is undeniably a superior film. But May is certainly a pleasure.
May is available on The Criterion Channel.
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