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When you attend a film festival, you often end up choosing movies based on unusual criteria. You don’t normally have trailers or reviews or things to go on, so you choose based on the synopsis…or the actors…or even the title. When I chose to see A Film with Me in It at the Toronto International Film Festival, I chose it mostly for its time slot. It was Irish. It looked interesting. But, first and foremost, I could fit it into my schedule. Still, despite my less-than-selective criteria, A Film with Me in It ended up being the perfect Friday afternoon film.
The woman who introduced the film at the festival described A Film with Me in It—quite accurately—as a “dark slacker comedy.” It’s the story of Mark (writer Mark Doherty), a struggling actor who can’t seem to catch a break.
Mark lives in a run-down basement apartment with his handicapped brother, David (David Doherty), and his girlfriend, Sally (Amy Huberman). But his relationship with Sally is on the rocks—so he’s been sleeping on the floor in David’s room.
Though Sally keeps complaining about everything that’s falling apart in the flat, Mark can’t tell her that the landlord refuses to fix anything—because then he’d have to admit that he’s been spending her share of the rent on other things.
But just as Sally decides that it’s time to pack her bags and leave, the flat begins to fight back. As it turns out, their apartment really is a death trap. People start dying in unusual—but totally accidental—ways, and Mark and his deadbeat friend, Pierce (Dylan Moran), are left scrambling to figure out how to explain their predicament to the police.
A Film with Me in It is a cleverly odd comedy. It’s filled with unlikely deaths and unbelievable events that, if not done well, could have been disastrous—not to mention painfully ridiculous. But writer Mark Doherty and director Ian Fitzgibbon, along with the talented and funny cast, manage to make the ridiculous and unbelievable feel almost natural. And although the subject matter is exceedingly dark, Doherty shows restraint both in writing and in acting. He pushes it to the dark-comedy edge without slipping and falling into an awkward and uncomfortable abyss.
The stars, too, keep the laughs coming with their perfectly deadpan performances. Their timing is perfect, and their facial expressions couldn’t be funnier. Irish comedian Moran, especially, is hilarious as the drunken deadbeat, Pierce, who tries to come up with creative solutions to their unusual dilemma—but Doherty has no problem keeping up with him.
It definitely takes a dark and twisted sense of humor to enjoy this strange comic adventure. But if you enjoy movies like Shaun of the Dead, you won’t want to miss this dark indie treat.
