May (film)

May is a 2002 American psychological horror film written and directed by Lucky McKee in his directorial debut, and starring Angela Bettis, Jeremy Sisto, Anna Faris, and James Duval. The film follows a lonely young woman (Bettis) traumatized by a difficult childhood, and her increasingly desperate attempts to connect with the people around her.
May was unsuccessful at the box office, but received favorable reviews from critics, and is now considered a cult classic.
Veterinary assistant May Canady experienced a troubled childhood due to her lazy eye. Her only "true friend" is a glass-encased doll named Suzie, which her mother made and gifted May for her birthday with the advice, "if you can't find a friend, make one." Her optometrist fixes May's lazy eye, first with glasses, then with a contact lens.
May follows local mechanic Adam without his knowledge, eventually talking to him, then begins dating him. She fixates on his hands, which she considers to be the most attractive part of him. May's lesbian colleague, Polly, also shows an interest in her. One day, May remarks that Polly has a beautiful neck. During their flirtation, Polly gives May a pet cat, Loopy.
May invites Adam to her apartment, where he shows her a film, titled Jack and Jill, that he made for university. The film displays two young lovers who go on a picnic and end up eating each other. May becomes aroused by the cannibalism in the film. While passionately kissing, she bites Adam's lip, drawing blood. Disturbed, Adam abruptly leaves. May shouts at Suzie and shoves her in the cupboard.
May begins volunteering at a school for blind children, where she takes a liking to a sullen young girl named Petey, who makes her a clay ashtray with the name "May" pressed into it. Abandoned by Adam, May gives in to Polly's advances and they start a short affair. May overhears Adam saying that he is glad he could get rid of her. Devastated, she visits Polly, but finds her with another girl named Ambrosia. When even Loopy refuses to come near her, an enraged May throws Petey's ashtray at Loopy, killing the cat and shattering the ashtray. She develops delusions that Suzie is talking to her.
May takes Suzie to school, introducing her to the blind children as her best friend. The children struggle to take Suzie out of the glass case, ultimately shattering the case and injuring themselves and May. May returns home devastated with the ruined doll. The following day, she meets a young punk, who asks her if she wants to get some candy with him, which she accepts. May admires the Frankenstein's monster tattoo on his arm. At her house, he discovers Loopy's corpse and calls May a "freak". May breaks down and fatally stabs him in the head with scissors. After contemplating her future actions, May claims she needs "more parts".
On Halloween night, May dresses in a homemade costume resembling Suzie. Bringing with her a wheeled cooler, she adopts a normal personality, and goes to Polly's house, where she slits Polly's throat with a pair of surgical scalpels. When Ambrosia arrives, May stabs her in the temples. Next, she visits Adam and his new girlfriend at his house. May murders both of them with the scalpels. At home, she designs her "new friend", a life-sized patchwork doll made from the punk's arms, Polly's neck, Ambrosia's legs, Adam's hands, his girlfriend's ears, and Loopy's fur for the hair. Using the broken remnants of the "MAY" ashtray to form an anagram, she names the doll "Amy". She realizes that Amy has no eyes and cannot "see" her, so she gouges out her lazy eye. Crying in pain and bleeding, she places the eye on Amy's head and begs the doll to look at her. She collapses on the bed beside the doll, and caresses it. Her creation comes to life, and brushes her face affectionately with Adam's hands, at which May smiles.
Writer-director Lucky McKee wrote the initial screenplay for May while still attending film school. McKee has stated that "May wouldn't exist if it weren't for Amanda Plummer's character in The Fisher King."
May features a score and original songs by Jammes Luckett of the rock group Poperratic (then known as Alien Tempo Experiment 13).
Additional artists on the soundtrack include The Breeders, The Kelley Deal 6000, H Is Orange, Strangels, Thrill My Wife, The Wedding's Off, Angelo Metz, and Tommy James and the Shondells.
Some of Luckett's music from the film was released on the 2007 CD May and Other Selected Works of Jaye Barnes Luckett by La-La Land Records.
In 2022, Luckett's original motion picture soundtrack for the film was released on cassette and vinyl by Terror Vision for Record Store Day.
May premiered on January 13, 2002 at the Sundance Film Festival. The following day, it was announced that Lionsgate had purchased worldwide distribution rights to the film for approximately $800,000.
Lionsgate gave the film limited regional screenings in Austin, Texas and Los Angeles beginning February 7, 2003, which yielded in unfavorable responses, leading the studio to give the film a limited theatrical release in North America. The film opened in New York City on June 6, 2003, followed by a Los Angeles premiere on June 20, 2003.
Lionsgate released May on VHS and DVD on July 15, 2003. In 2024, the British distributor Second Sight Films released May in a limited edition region B Blu-ray set.
By the end of its theatrical run, the film had grossed $150,277 in the United States. It eventually grossed $634,803 worldwide on its $1.7 million budget.
The film received favorable reviews from critics. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 70% of 70 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.4/10. The website's consensus reads: "Above average slasher flick." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 58 out of 100, based on 18 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.
Some critics praised the film for its unique atmosphere while also complimenting its brutality through the eyes of someone who is so caught up in their own fantasy world. Bettis' performance was also praised. Roger Ebert granted the film four stars out of four, and called it "a horror film and something more and deeper, something disturbing and oddly moving" and characterized the denouement as "a final shot that would get laughs in another kind of film, but May earns the right to it, and it works, and we understand it". Variety magazine critic David Rooney turned in a review that was more middle of the road, stating that the film was "More successful when the title character finally embarks on her bloody mission than in the dawdling buildup".
The New York Times critic Stephen Holden opined that "the performances are a cut or two above what you would find in the average slasher film. But in the end that's all it is". Scott Brown of Entertainment Weekly awarded the film a B- rating, noting that "though ultimately too waterlogged with student-film self-seriousness to revel fully in its low-rent joie de cleaver, [it] nevertheless taps into a furious atavistic energy that reflects well on the filmmaker and his fully committed cast."
Writing for the Chicago Tribune, Robert K. Elder praised the film as "a refreshing, macabre tale." Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times compared the film's tone to the works of Dario Argento, also praising it for its subversive humor and noting both McKee's direction and Bettis's performance as "rigorous and imaginative." The Austin Chronicle's Marjorie Baumgarten awarded the film a three out of five-star rating, writing that it "comes loaded in a nice psychological package that makes the title character’s madness a logical outcome of her perverse upbringing and extreme social isolation."
Kim Morgan of The Oregonian gave the film a C+ rating, noting: "On paper, it sounds like the start of a good film. Too bad McKee made such a lackluster thing of it. Though the horror comes from an interesting place, it's frequently forced, negating much of the humor and pathos the film attempts to instill."
In 2006, the Chicago Film Critics Association named May the 61st-scariest film ever made.
Bloody Disgusting ranked the film #17 in their list of the "Top 20 Horror Films of the Decade", with the article calling the film "criminally under-seen at the time of its release... The plotting itself manages to sidestep the usual slasher tropes as it slowly and inexorably unravels, all leading up to a quietly haunting conclusion that is as heart-wrenching as it is unnerving." Albert Nowicki included the film on his list of "best Halloween movies of all time" for Prime Movies. It was also praised by Robert Englund.