Roman (2006)

As a movie, Roman sort of works as a companion piece to May, only with the roles reversed: this time, Lucky McKee plays the lead role while Angela Bettis directs. Like May herself, the eponymous Roman is a troubled soul, unable to understand or fit in with normal social conventions, instead just hanging around at the edge of the normal world. And, like May, there's lots of of death and chopping people up.

But in the end, it only sort of works.

A big part of the reason for this is the budget. While May was slick and well-produced, Roman looks cheap. There's no two ways about it: it looks cheap. It also looks messy, as if it's been edited by someone trying out all the special effects bundled into their film editing software. Not only does this look rubbish, but it also jars with the quiet, sad story at the heart of the film.

It feels like this was a movie written years and years ago by a student writer; and, if it were just a student production, it'd be okay. But we know that McKee and Bettis can do better than this, so it's just frustrating.

On the plus side, it comes in a gorgeous, sparkly box (which probably cost more than the film) and contains the line "what the shit you do, you ain't got no TV?" Pure poetry.

IMDB link