Roman

source: Roman

Lucky McKee and Angela Bettis delivered one of the finest, most moving, and startling horror films of the early 21st century when they first collaborated on the remarkable "May." McKee and Bettis get back together for this equally striking and unusual affair, this time with McKee as the star and Bettis handling the directorial duties. The results are every bit as strange, moody, and surprising as one would expect. Lonesome and reclusive social misfit Roman (a subtle and convincing performance by McKee, who also wrote the highly idiosyncratic script) pines for a lovely young lady (a brief, but charming and memorable turn by the comely Kristen Bell) who lives in the same drab apartment complex. Roman befriends the object of his desire, but alas accidentally kills her. He decides to store her body in the bathtub and keeps it preserved with ice. Matters get complicated when flaky nonconformist free spirit Eva (delightfully played by the perky and adorable Nectar Rose) enters Roman's life and falls in love with him. McKee and Bettis expertly craft a strangely haunting and poignant character study of a fascinating maladjusted sadsack guy which also works as a very morbid and peculiar, yet thoughtful and provocative meditation on love, death, alienation, the basic human need for companionship, and the insanity of loneliness. Moreover, McKee and Bettis firmly ground the whole thing in an utterly plausible pedestrian reality which adds substantially to the movie's overall effectiveness. McKee and Rose do outstanding work in the lead roles. Kevin Ford's crisp cinematography offers a wondrous wealth of stunningly beautiful visuals. Jaye Barnes Luckett's brooding score likewise hits the harmonic spot. The surprise downbeat ending packs a powerful emotional wallop to the gut. Although the film gets bogged down a bit in overly slow pacing and suffers from a few pretentious stylistic flourishes, it nonetheless has a weirdly timeless quality and quirky appeal that's uniquely its own. Those expecting a standard ooga-booga jump-out-at-you horror shockfest will be disappointed and frustrated in equal measure; folks with a taste for something different and out of the ordinary should really dig this supremely oddball picture. Recommended.

"Roman" takes the form of a thriller, but functions more as a surprisingly low key character study. An isolated, sad, socially awkward young man works at a factory where he has no friends, and lives alone in a depressing apartment. His only joy is watching a beautiful young neighbor he fantasizes about. In a stroke of luck he ends up on a date with her, but things go horribly, tragically wrong. Before long he has struck up a relationship with a new, free-spirited but death obsessed young artist who has moved into the building, but he remains unable to fully invest himself in the relationship, largely for fear of things going wrong again. The film was shot on low quality video, and looks very rough, but there are times when that adds to the intimate 'reality' feel. At other times it just looks a little cheap. There's a surprising amount of humor, and Lucky McKee, who wrote the script as well as playing the lead does a good job a creating a very strange protagonist you still find yourself feeling for. Certainly this has it's fair share of flaws, and moments that don't quite come off, but it has originality and bravery on it's side, and in it's best moments it achieves a sort of David Lynch vibe. For a first feature Angela Bettis acquits herself nicely.

I'm not familiar with other work by this crew so I'm just going to review this movie by itself. The first couple of minutes I was sure this would be one of those movies that I would have to fast-forward most of it, but to my surprise I ended up enjoy it. Roman is a lonely anti-social welder who lives a painfully routine life, until he meets a girl who lives in his apartment complex. The girl is adorable and full of life. But Roman is tortured by fantasies and voices in his head. He ends up killing her but because he loves her he keeps the frozen body in his house. Little by little he cuts pieces of her and throws them in a lake. He meets another girl who is even more lovely than the first and who actually develops a crush for him. She is the artsy type, a little odd, and has a fascination with death. She is working on some art project that she won't reveal until the surprising end. This is a very low budget movie that makes up for that with a ton of personality. The performances are very good but most importantly the characters are outstanding. Roman is the guy no one is interested in meeting, but if you go through the trouble of meeting him, he's actually alright. The girls are pretty much a guy's fantasy. And Nectar Rose steals basically the show. The script is funny, tender, smart. The problem is that there isn't enough story for a 1:30 minutes film. The camera lingers too long on shots; shots in the dark-and there are lots of them-look pretty terrible. You can tell that the ending isn't going to be nice but it does come as a surprise. It's a shame this movie wasn't made with a higher budget. This is one of the few movies that deserves a remake.

Well, there's this disturbed guy named Roman who works in a metal shop. He doesn't mix well with others and this isolates him from people especially his co-workers.( The scenes with them are a little sad but also pretty funny.) There are two women in Roman's life. For one of them, well her encounter with Roman doesn't work out too well. The other may or may not be a figment of Roman's imagination. Roman eats a lot of pork and beans. This isn't a straight horror movie but more of an emo-horror-rom-com. It's some kind of experimental meditation on life, death, art, insanity, loneliness and beans. You might love it; you might decide you've had more than enough after a few minutes. I dunno but it is odd and sometimes interesting. The strangest & most interesting aspect of this movie is that it features Mr. Cub himself, Ernie Banks, in his first appearance in an emo-horror-rom-com. I'd love to know the story behind that. Kristin Bell might surprise you. If you like movies that are deliberately paced, twisted, off-beat and macabre, then give it a try.

Being a huge fan of the movie May, I was ecstatic in waiting for Roman's release. Upon watching it, I had incredibly mixed feelings on it, but decided I was in love anyway. The character does not have a lot of buildup. You don't get a lot of understanding behind the reclusive character of Roman, or why he's so withdrawn. Roman has a strangely endearing quality about him. Some points you think he's so weird that if you encountered him you'd flee in holy terror, and at other times, you'd embrace him and feed him cookies because he's so lonely and sad. The Girl ("Isis" played by Kristen Bell) was, in my opinion, nothing more than an irritatingly obnoxious object with a bad haircut. Her short time in the film was perfect, just so we didn't have to suffer through more of her. I definitely thought that Eva was much more of a lust-worthy subject for Roman to pursuit. Strange and Lovely. But definitely touched in the head. I was, admittedly, disappointed in the ending.

I didn't really know what to expect when I started watching this. Maybe a bit of horror based on the cover and back cover description. It turns out it's some kind of intimate drama with very little horror or gore. Yes, there is death but you won't necessarily realize it's the case right away. A lonely, very tall, socially inept metal welder spends most of its free time drinking beer and smoking in his small, motel-like apartment sitting on his comfy chair looking out the window. At one point, he starts being obsessed with a pretty blonde woman going to get her mail at the same time each day, but doesn't dare contact her. Unlikely as it seems, she makes first contact and they start becoming friends. A while later, at his apartment, a tragic accident occurs. Despite getting main credit, Kirsten Bell, the blonde woman, is not much in the film and is by far the best, most natural actor of the bunch. The "star" is the actor-director Lucky Mckee who acts expressionless most of the time. Appropriate for the character, but easy to act. The other main actress, Nectar Rose, was definitely bad, fake and overacting despite playing an eccentric character. Her arrival provided an interesting twist, but also took me out of the story as she was not believable. The other worse actor was the fat building manager who, I guess, was supposed to be comic relief but just ended up making things even more caricatural. The main character was creepy, disturbing and a bit sad, but more in his passivity and lack of expression. A better actor, especially with his eyes, would have helped. The story had a fairly interesting concept, but it didn't feel as well developed and captivating as it could have been. The pace was slow and contemplative with a little creativity shown in the daydreams. I find the whole movie was brought down by the poor acting and by being tedious. However, it was slightly saved by the somewhat poetic justice of the ending. Rating: 3 out of 10 (poor)

Roman (Lucky McKee) is a lonely guy who becomes obsessed with a young woman (Kristen Bell). That obsession goes horribly awry, but things quickly turn around when Roman strikes up a romance with a young artist named Eva (Nectar Rose). The movie is considered a spin-off of 2002 cult hit "May". In "May", Angela Bettis played the title role and Lucky McKee directed, roles which have been switched for Roman. It has been said to be a reversed gender version of May, which tells the story of a lonely person who has an obsession with a random stranger. To call it a spin-off seems a stretch, though, as there are no recurring characters. What this film taught me: Saturday is chili dogs in the cemetery day. But also, Angela Bettis can make a fine film. Throwing in a "Harvey" reference for good measure, and using some amazing body part props, she constructs a good suspense horror romance. Of course, McKee wrote it, but once she has the camera it's her baby. Surprisingly, Nectar Rose outshines Kristen Bell. I feel little sympathy for Bell, but take a great delight in Rose and her character's actions. McKee, of course, also shows he can act, and plays a perfectly creepy gentleman.

Though an uneven effort, this flick is a dark, quirky gem-in-the-rough, not unlike the agates that don't look like much when you pick them up at Little Girl's Point, but turn out rather stunning after a week in the tumbler. In order to have ANY memory of this film after seeing it, one must skip the crappy extras on the DVD or the last remnant of good feeling toward the feature likely will be canceled out. The patronizing and absurdly repetitious cast & crew interviews last an endless 24 minutes, consisting of these people donning cheap Groucho masks (a gambit that's old in 24 seconds!) and asking each other the same sophomoric handful of questions over and over and over again. The only interesting tidbit to emerge here is that Lucky McKee wrote the first draft of the script in three days when he was a college student. "Alternate cast outtakes" is not much better. These 13 minutes are divided almost equally between two other actors (besides McKee) in the title role of Roman; they both suck. The earlier 2002 aborted effort with Kevin Ford is the more interesting (and, unfortunately, the second presented)--mostly because of background music and a * chick, neither of which are present in the final 2006 version. It's best to just skip these miserable add-ons, in order to leave the mundane Pirandelloism of the feature's final frames unsullied in the mind's eye. Reinforcing the parting images is Kara and Boyd Jacobson's rendition of the haunting lost youth ditty "I Don't Want to Play in Your Yard" over the closing credits, which strongly invites an allegorical interpretation of this whole effort. Like the ephemeral playmates in this bittersweet tune, is it not possible that both "Isis" and Eva are figments of Roman's imagination; competing dream girls on par with Roman's two-minute fantasy about a flowery Earth mother and the alternate FLASHDANCE-styled welder that sets the tone for the movie six minutes in? Throughout the film, Roman is totally inarticulate with his coworkers, his landlord, and his neighbors. Yet he is philosophically verbose with the two ladies. Perhaps he is so taciturn with real people because his interior dialogs drown them out. No doubt the inspiration for this script was the Nineteenth Century Georg Buchner play WOYZECK, which I had to read at the same age McKee was when he wrote this script. An army doctor forces Mr. Woyzeck onto an all-pea diet, which soon causes him to flip out and kill his wife. In McKee's movie, a girl (real or not) entices Roman onto an all-pork & beans diet (cases of the stuff are the main furnishing of his efficiency), with similar murderous results (real or not). Maybe it's time to check on the safety of Morgan Spurlock's significant other, given his all-McDonald's diet?

First off this film isn't just a male focused version of May. SPOILER WARNING- One big difference is Roman never purposely hurt anyone in the film. It's basically about a lonely, socially awkward, and disturbed man, trying to find happiness in the world. Sadly when he makes his first real connection, and falls for a girl, his inexperience in interaction with other people, leads to him accidentally killing his love. I won't give anything else away plot wise, except to say that he does fall in love with again with a somewhat disturbed girl, and just as it seems his life is finally looking up, an unexpected twist happens. Angela Bettis does a great job as director this time around, and Lucky Mckee was absolutely dead on in his portrayal of Roman, You really felt for the character.