A darkly comic, unnerving and occasionally chilling depiction of the sadistic psychopath inside. A man named Reed (Christopher Abbott) is happily married; a wonderful family life with a newborn baby. It's made clear in the opening frames that he has a desire to hurt and to kill. He loves his family too much to exploit them so plans a pretend business trip in which he actually is going to rent a hotel room and book a prostitute to murder. A lady of the night named Jackie (Mia Wasikowska) is hired and upon a dispute the two have, she locks herself in the bathroom. What follows on from there is better left unsaid to provide the best viewing experience as I only knew up until this point going in and it's one hell of a twisted ride. First thing to say the two leads are fantastic! Wasikowska is terrific; she's created such an interesting film career starting with Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland to more adult darker territory with works such as Park Chan-Wook's Stoker and Guillermo Del Toro's Crimson Peak. She portrays sexuality no matter how fetishistic with such dignity and delicacy that is really refreshing to see in modern cinema and she is a real talent; really fleshes out her characters. Abbott is also brilliant and portrays a man on the edge really well; confusion and morbid fascination all wrapped up in a neurotic package. It's a slow burning film and definately gets better on more watches; becoming even funnier once the intense first watch is complete and you know what is to happen. There is a certain drug influenced scene that genuinely made my skin crawl and is really creepy. The soundtrack is great and writer/Director Nicholas Pesce conjures a very taut atmosphere and adapts the material well from Ryu Murakami's novel of the same name. It's not going to be everyone's cup of tea and I'm sure the ending will frustrate some; it's pretty abrupt and I wasn't sure about it upon first watch but it makes more sense on a second watch. Overall, it will divide opinion but I think it's pretty damn good and worth a watch for those intrigued by darker material
Review of Piercing
