The Voices (2014)

February 13, 2015 6:59 PM

A colorful journey of self-discovery for a young man, his dog, and his cat.

Ryan Reynolds (Jerry) does the voices of the animals. Director Marjane Satrapi has a couple of critically-acclaimed movies and screenwriter Michael Perry is best known for American Gothic, Eerie Indiana, and House.

Jerry is the very definition of an unreliable narrator. Unless he is on his meds (which only happened once) or you're seeing glimpses of the world through another character, you cannot trust what you see through the camera.

posted by Ik ben afgesneden (9 comments total)

I loved Mr. Whiskers and his Scottish accent. The film was pretty uneven but the cat was a scene stealer and made the less interesting bits worthwhile. I also wanted to see more of Jerry's living space--the reality of it. It was hard to make out some of the stuff since the reality was so dark and gloomy. What was in the pizza boxes?!

One of the characters calls Jerry a pizza guy but he's in the shipping dept, isn't he? The ending was a bit meh. Maybe he should have gone out in a (different sort of) blaze of glory? The singing and dancing was amusing.
posted by Ik ben afgesneden at 7:11 PM on February 13, 2015

The trailer looked like it could go either very funny or very very disturbing.
posted by sammyo at 7:30 PM on February 13, 2015

Disturbing but the cat was funny.
posted by Ik ben afgesneden at 3:53 AM on February 14, 2015

People are still trying to make Ryan Reynolds happen, huh?
posted by Gin and Broadband at 9:15 AM on February 14, 2015 [1 favorite]

I hate talking animals but the premise worked for me here - I only wish they had upped the absurdity a notch or two and played it out as straight up comedy instead going for seriousness near the third quarter. Not great but it didn't make me leave the theater either.
posted by hoodrich at 3:31 PM on February 15, 2015

It's pretty dark, so dark I was scratching my head as to how they could possibly end it on a happy note. And then they did. (Though I suspect a lot of test screening comment cards were filled out, and I'm sure there's a 5 minute longer, much darker ending somewhere on the cutting room floor.) It does dance on a very delicate edge in it's tone and pulls it off for most of it's length.
posted by Catblack at 7:17 PM on March 26, 2015

I thought it was a great representation of how mentally ill people can see the world, especially the difference between being on and off the medication. The dark comedy let up too quick for me, but I suppose it's hard to maintain that tone without facing the reality of the consequences of his actions. The ending was great though.
posted by numaner at 12:16 PM on May 14, 2016

Musically a fascinating film. There's a ton of music in the movie, and it's all pastiche. Wherever a real pop song would be there's an original tone- and genre-matched tune that's so believably conceived as to keep me trying to remember where I heard it before. The visuals and story are so weird that it was easy to miss how on point the soundtrack was too.
posted by carsonb at 11:33 PM on July 28, 2016

People are still trying to make Ryan Reynolds happen, huh?

I mean, yeah, they were. But yeah, he did happen, so...
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:30 PM on October 16, 2021