By DEIRDRE CRIMMINS
Starring Paige Gilmour and Shane Quigley Murphy
Written and directed by Alix Austin and Keir Siewert
Dark Sky Films
Breakups are messy. Usually, the “mess” in question is emotional and, occasionally, financial. In KILL YOUR LOVER, it’s both but also an icky, sticky mess of viscera.
In the beginning, one of the first things we learn about Dakota (Paige Gilmour) is that she wants to break up with her boyfriend, Axel (Shane Quigley Murphy). The punk rocker does not want to change to fit into his hospital-corners world, and she is through. However, when Axel comes home sick, it seems like a bad time to bring up the end of their romance.
From here, KILL YOUR LOVER weaves through their relationship and Axel’s rapidly declining physical state. We see their first date and the good times they had. We also see his controlling nature and Dakota’s lack of ambition. Swaying through these timelines and emotional tableaus, we get to know this flawed couple and better understand their entire saga.
These character insights are contrasted and supported by the body horror Axel brings home with him. His skin is oozing, and unnatural veins surface where no human circulatory system provides them. His descent is unknown to medical science – and it does not contain itself to only his body. Any person or object in reach can also succumb to the nastiness.
And that is the cleverest trick KILL YOUR LOVER successfully pulls off. Correlating the physical with the mental is as old as cinema itself. Making the invisible visible is a tried and true artistic approach to showing what is going on with a character, with images rather than words alone. Here, Axel’s toxicity goes from metaphorical to literal and back again. We see how his illness spreads as he moves around the apartment just as he moves through Dakota’s memories.
This is all a little on-the-nose and obvious, but that does not mean it does not work fairly well. The allegory is classic for a reason, and this film uses it quite well.
The physical performances are apt, but on occasion, the characters do not fully communicate their emotional states in ways that tug at heartstrings. Going through the motions of a breakup feels very different than truly suffering from heartbreak, and the difference between the two can be felt.
KILL YOUR LOVER shows its seams in the overall look and feel of the film. The gore and art direction of the infection are plenty believable and appropriately disgusting. However, the film suffers a bit from the limited visuals of the space. If not for the flashbacks, it is practically a chamber film and would have benefited from more establishment of the apartment as a setting. Had that layout and its history been clearer, the emotional punches and tension using the space would have worked much better. KILL YOUR LOVER has a few missteps in its overall production, but it mostly makes up for these flaws by tactfully embracing a classic film trope.
