It’s not a good feeling to be so sure of something and have no one believe you. Delusions and paranoia go hand-in-hand, but just because one person suspects something no one else does isn’t a surefire indication that they’re wrong, or all that it’s all in their head. Kill Me circles that very question as its protagonist can’t remember what happened on the night he almost died but is sure that he didn’t plan – or try – to kill himself, and therefore someone must have been trying to kill him.
Jimmy (Charlie Day) wakes up in a bathroom filled with his own blood and calls 911, where Margot (Allison Williams) answers and assures him that everything will be okay as she dispatches paramedics to his location. When he wakes up in the hospital, his family tells him that he must have tried to commit suicide again, even though he’s certain that a crime occurred. He gets some unintended encouragement when Margot, curious what happened to the man on the other end of the phone, accidentally reaches out to him, an act he takes as a sign of support and an indicator that he’s onto something.
This film, from first-time director Peter Warren, balances a very delicate tone. Day is best known for his comedic work on It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and he brings an entertaining frantic nature to this character. But it’s also a clever bit of casting since, even though he’s over-the-top and hard to take seriously sometimes, he’s desperate for anyone to listen to him, and Day is able to subtly elicit sympathy for his character’s plight, representative of those with mental health struggles who are constantly dismissed as hysterical or out of control who are shut down even when they’re sharing important information that is very much tethered to reality.
The tightrope this film pulls off is that it’s never entirely clear whether Jimmy is indeed pursuing a real killer or if this is all a figment of his imagination. Keeping the audience interested and invested without revealing its hand is an arduous and impressive task, and having Day in the lead role helps with that since his antics are both entertaining and unsettling, suggesting that maybe audiences do have reason to believe him. While that uncertainty might be frustrating in different hands, Warren steers this ship calmly and doesn’t overplay anything, ensuring that there’s still at least a hint of doubt anytime the film appears point in either direction.
Opposite Day is Williams, whose 911 operator at first seems rather stoic and by-the-book, but it’s fun to see how Margot is more scattered and full of personality as she spends more time with Jimmy. Her performance is also carefully calibrated, never too taken with Jimmy’s wild ideas but also hopeless to resist the natural curiosity she has. Aya Cash is typically furious as Jimmy’s sister who only wants him to get well – which she’s constantly shouting at him – and Giancarlo Esposito plays against type as Jimmy’s gentle, caring therapist.
Kill Me makes use of the obsessive preoccupation that film and TV audiences have today with crime dramas, and anyone watching should enjoy how little Jimmy seems to know at the start and how quickly he Googles and then orders each item he learns is critical to any solid sleuthing process. This film features surface-level entertainment in a story carried by a dependably committed Day and an equally worthwhile second layer buried underneath as audiences are forced to confront that this character may not be well, and that he needs a different kind of help than devices that can be ordered online.
Movie Rating: 7/10
