Too much of everything

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

My friend Dahmer is a movie about the coming of age of one of the US's most notorious serial killers, Jeffery Dahmer. This movie thoughtfully portrays Dahmer's journey into insanity as we learn he has a crazy mother, that his parents are divorced, that his parents let him keep an animal lab and that his friends in school only talk to him to make fun of him. Dahmer's temporary friend group is very realistic, with Derf, although not always being right, still being very relatable.This is a slow-paced movie which works perfectly for the setting of the '70s, and Ross Lynch gives a top notch performance of Dahmer, with Alex Wolff also giving a good performance of Derf.The only fault in this movie is how they transition the narrative from junior to senior year, in the start of the movie, as they only show an incredibly short montage of Dahmer, that doesn't really indicate his grade is changing.

Taking place over the course of Jeffrey Dahmer's last year in high school, and culminating with the faithful meeting between Dahmer (Ross Lynch) and Steven Hicks (Dave Sorboro), writer/director Marc Meyers's My Friend Dahmer is based on the graphic novel by John Backderf (played in the film by Alex Wolff), who attended the same school as Dahmer, and formed a pseudo-friendship with him. The film is tonally brilliant, coming across like The Breakfast Club (1985) directed by David Fincher, perfectly capturing 80s tackiness. Narratively, however, it's extremely plodding, and could easily have been trimmed by 20 minutes. It's also difficult to see what Meyers was trying to achieve; other than a couple of brief moments, we're never given any real access to Dahmer's interiority, so he remains an enigma, always at arm's length (which could have been the point). But is Meyers asking us to feel sympathy for Dahmer because he had a difficult adolescence, came from a broken home, couldn't make friends in school. Or is this simply a character study (if we didn't know it was about Dahmer, it could be any number of examinations of high school awkwardness)?The lack of clarity regarding the film's theme is compounded by the scenes where it looks as if Dahmer is about to murder someone, only to stop at the last second. This is an especially strange way to generate tension, insofar as we already know his first murder was Hicks. Also, if the film is actually trying to say something of societal worth regarding serial killers, directionless youth, nature vs. nuture etc, trying to draw an audience into the narrative with the prospect of murder probably isn't the way to go about it. The film also fails to really get into the issues of Dahmer's sexuality, and his confusion and frustration about being gay. It's worth a look, but if you're already familiar with Dahmer's story, you won't find much insight here.5/10

At first glance, Marc Meyers' My Friend Dahmer looks like another serial killer movie playing into our morbid fascination with these incomprehensible figures. Set during the months leading up to notorious killer Jeffrey Dahmer's first murder, the film seems to promise an 'explanation' for his actions.Sure enough, Meyers faithfully reproduces known details of Dahmer's youth, in what can feel like little more than an adaptation of the 'early life' section of his Wikipedia profile. Raised by a mother with mental health issues and a father who did the best he could, Dahmer was unpopular at school, an awkward teen who chose to dissect roadkill rather than socialise with his classmates.Things get more interesting when Dahmer abruptly finds himself with three new friends, including the easy-going John Backderf (played by the transcendent Alex Wolff), the boy who went on to write a graphic novel upon which the film is based. Far from pursuing sordid fame with juicy stories about the killer's youth, Backderf's work is animated by a need to grapple with a nagging sense of remorse: did his treatment of Dahmer contribute to his becoming a killer? Was there anything he could have done to stop him?Dahmer's new friends do not appear in a particularly positive light. Their interest in him does not stem from genuine concern or sympathy. Rather, the weirdo attracts their attention when he simulates cerebral palsy in class, a disturbing joke which the kids latch onto as a last rebellious prank before college. They soon nickname this type of class-time disruption as 'doing a Dahmer.'Following the boy, we are powerless witnesses to his frustration when he ultimately fails to get the sympathy he craves. His friends push the joke too far and then abandon him, and Dahmer's sense of alienation is a deeply relatable example of adolescent emotion. We've all felt how sadness can take on an existential dimension in the summer months, and when Jeffrey finds himself home alone in the middle of a warm afternoon while everyone else is preparing for graduation with their family, it is difficult not to feel his heartbreak.But empathy has its limits. When Dahmer decides to turn his resentment into violence - and it is presented as a decision, not an impulse - we cannot follow him there. The pain we felt for his hopelessness becomes the sorrow of knowing that a kind word or gesture might have delayed his crimes, but not stopped them.This profound sadness is the bedrock of a growing sense of fear, which reaches fever pitch intensity in an impressively executed set piece near the end of the film. After not speaking to him for weeks, Backderf offers Dahmer a ride back to his house, one last encounter before he goes to college and forever out of his friend's life. Almost unbearably terrifying, the confrontation restores to Dahmer the stomach-churning dread and misery that reading about serial killers often induces, but watching movies about them rarely does.Although My Friend Dahmer does not resolve the impossible question of 'nature vs nurture', it approaches it with a humanity that is too often missing from such stories.

My Friend Dahmer is a film that follows the life of a young Jeffrey Dahmer, a serial killer who murdered 17 males...(gulp) and basically this film explains how Dahmer descended into madness and how he became a serial killer. I was pretty surprised when I heard about this film when the trailer came out, I was immediatly like "Hell yes! I am watcing this" and when I watched it only last night, I really enjoyed it. I would not say the film is a masterpiece or anything but it was a descent little indie film, there is not much else to say, the performances were very good in the film but that's basically it. My Friend Dahmer is a good film, now, for Dahmer people who want to see an actual film based on him and know all about him, well now that I don't know??