Film Reviews

Killing Me Softly

• Director: Chen Kaige.
• Starring: Joseph Fiennes, Heather Graham, Natascha McElhone, Ulrich Thomsen, Ian Hart, Jason Hughes.
• Details: US and UK / 100 mins / (18).

Could Killing Me Softly be the worst film of the year? It'll take some beating. Based on the novel by journalists Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, Killing Me Softly follows Alice (a miscast Heather Graham) who has just come out of a disastrous long term relationship. Out of the blue, she encounters a handsome but mysterious chap called Adam Tallis (Joseph Fiennes, once again relying on his eyebrows to emote expression). After a whirlwind romance, and a bit of gratuitous kinky sex (which is really quite laughable), the pair rush into marriage. Yet it's only when they are man and wife that Alice begins to get suspicions that her new husband may not be everything he seems. While the source material is solid enough, the screenplay of Killing Me Softly is one of the misguided and misjudged this reviewer has ever seen. There's no sense of continuity in the film, no real atmosphere to speak of, and the characters are so paper thin that a gust of wind could blow them away. For a psychological thriller, there's precious little tension here, and the actors fumbling their way through matters don't exactly help to dispel the notion that Killing Me Softly ranks as the worst film (and performance) in the career of Heather Graham. And that folks is no mean feat.

Review by Garreth Murphy