The Shallow Tale Of A Writer Who Decided To Write About A Serial Killer Review: Dark Comedy Sets Its Sights On The Wrong Target

Some may find the title of The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write About a Serial Killer misleading. It’s not entirely inaccurate, but beneath the film’s initial premise as described in the title is a different movie, one less about the process of writing and more about a marriage falling apart and how it might be saved over one out of control night.

This night, which takes up a bulk of the film’s runtime, leads to some of The Shallow Tale‘s best moments, but it still ends up feeling like a misguided effort. At times darkly humorous, at others deadly serious, The Shallow Tale never hits its stride, getting lost along the way despite standout performances from Britt Lower and Steve Buscemi.

Britt Lower Is The Best Part Of The Shallow Tale

Suzie is on another wavelength

Lower stars as Suzie, the wife of Keane (the titular writer, played by the always good John Magaro). At a dinner party, Keane describes his next novel — a story set in 40,000 BC Slovenia about the last neanderthal who falls in love with one of the first Homo sapiens. Suzie points out that Keane has been working on the novel for four years, an amount of time she makes seem agonizingly long.

Suzie asking Keane for a divorce kickstarts the events of the film, which sees Keane form a relationship with a fan who offers him an undeniable opportunity — to write about a serial killer with the help of an actual serial killer. Kollmick (Steve Buscemi) worms his way into Keane’s life, eventually posing as a marriage counselor when Keane brings him home late one night, and they are caught by Suzie.

It’s quite the outlandish premise, but one that never reaches its full potential. Critiquing this movie then is kind of difficult — there is certainly a good one here, but it’s obscured by much of what Magaro and Buscemi’s characters get up to. The more exciting story comes from Suzie’s confusion around Keane’s research. When she finds books about toxicology and murder lying around, she gets the sneaking suspicion that her husband is trying to murder her before she can divorce him.

Lower vacillates between a delightfully straight-faced deadpan and a heightened anxiety at the idea of her murder at the hands of her husband. Like in her breakout role in Severance, Lower’s comedic timing is great, and her face can go from stoic to expressive at the drop of a hat. Suzie doesn’t want to die, but she’s also not sure if she wants to stay with her husband, who is suddenly cooking her dinner (Suzie wonders if he’s trying to poison her) and insisting they go to marriage counseling (is it all a ruse to make it look like he tried to save their marriage?).

The Shallow Tale Takes An Unexpected Left Turn

It’s undermined by what came before it

Despite not enjoying much of what came before it, the last third of The Shallow Tale is a delightfully deranged cat-and-mouse chase around New York City that had me hooked. Without spoiling much of what occurs, the sequence involves Suzie following Keane and Kollmick around the city as they collect bodies and do other sketchy, serial killer-y things. Lower’s discovery of these activities culminates in a hysterically brutal sequence about domination where Lower channels the inscrutable, disgruntled wife she was at the beginning of the film.

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Despite finding a sweet spot, The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write About a Serial Killer falters as a whole. Buscemi, Magaro, and Lower give great performances, but it does little to fill in the gaps of the story. In a way, Buscemi’s character is almost superfluous to the film, more a means to an end than anything else. The real heart here is Keane and Suzie’s marriage and the funniest thing of all is that it takes a few dead bodies, a sneaky car chase, and other hijinks to get even remotely close to saving it.

The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write About a Serial Killer premiered at the 2024 Tribeca Film Festival.

A struggling writer in the midst of a divorce befriends a retired serial killer who incidentally becomes his marriage counselor by day, and killing counselor for his next book by night.

Director

Tolga Karaçelik

Release Date

June 8, 2024

Writers

Tolga Karaçelik

Cast

Steve Buscemi , Britt Lower , John Magaro , Ward Horton , Olli Haaskivi , Sydney Cole Alexander , Jacob Ming-Trent , Nik Sadhnani

Runtime

102 Minutes

Pros

• Britt Lower, John Magaro, and Steve Buscemi give great performances.
• Britt Lower’s Suzie is the most fascinating character of the bunch and leads to the most hilarity.

Cons

• Much of the film’s dark humor falls flat.
• Steve Buscemi’s serial killer character feels superfluous to the proceedings.
• The Shallow Tale’s real story lies in the crumbling marriage of Suzie and Keane rather than Keane’s writing journey.