Here’s something to remind you that, however the debate currently stands, believably real violence is still pretty rare in the movies, and so the violence in this black comedy by the New York-based indie film-maker Onur Tukel is, in its way, startling and quite shocking. It is a vignette of extended nastiness that reminded me of something by Neil LaBute, all about a fight between two women. The title both announces and pre-empts the possibility of our voyeurism. It is set in a sketchily imagined satire-future, where a new war on terror has been announced in the US.
Sandra Oh is Veronica, an obnoxious trophy wife married to a wealthy military contractor. She is appalled at her teenage son’s ambitions to be an artist. With a shudder, she remembers a college contemporary who had similar hopeless plans. Then, at a super-posh cocktail party, she runs across this very woman, Ashley (Anne Heche), a struggling artist who has humiliatingly been reduced to helping with the catering. On the staircase outside, their intense and irresistible mutual dislike, also fuelled with secret self-hate, escalates into out-and-out fisticuffs. It’s a original movie that tries to hit you in the face with irony. The energy levels finally plummet, but it lands a few punches.
