Women Who Kill

Women Who Kill is about Morgan. Morgan runs a true crime podcast about female serial killers with her ex girlfriend, Jean. Despite no longer being together, Morgan and Jean’s relationship remains codependent. This changes when Morgan meets the beautiful and mysterious Simone. Quickly falling into a relationship with Simone, Morgan disregards Jean and the rest of her friends. This is until Jean applies her true crime mind to Simone and puts together evidence that suggests Jean might be a serial killer. Or she might not be. Jean might just be jealous and Morgan’s willingness to go along with this theory might be based out of nothing more than her fear of commitment.

Women Who Kill is a dark romantic comedy. That’s a lot of genres to try and juggle. The movie does so with moderate success. This is not a case where I will say that Women Who Killed failed at one or more of its genres. Yet, because it is such a genre mix I also cannot say that this is a great dark film or romance or comedy. However, it is one of the strongest (and only) dark romantic comedy I’ve seen.

The climax of the film is by far the best scene and clearly what the script was structured around. The moment where Jean, paranoid and wielding a knife backs away in fear as Simone “threatens” her with commitment and emotional vulnerability is easily the best depiction of this movie’s themes and thesis. And what happens next is a great example of dark humour.

However, I’m not sure this admittedly very good punchline was worth almost 90 minutes of buildup. Perhaps as a short film, Women Who Kill would pack more punch. That might lead to more funny lines per minute and slightly better pacing. But I can’t blame them for not going the short film route. There is enough material to stretch to 90 minutes and really, who pays that much attention to short films? Even good ones. Certainly not this website.

My main problem is that lead actress Ingrid Jungermann struggles. It became clear to me early on that she was also the writer and director of this movie. This is because else would explain how she got this role. The supporting cast around Jungermann are quite strong but as the central character, Morgan is the weakest link. The main problem is that instead of Morgan’s statements coming across as dry humour, she often just seems unaffected and flat.

Women Who Kill is overall a mild success. Honestly, I wished it was better because I too am a WLW who likes true crime and seem to have a similar type of woman to Ingrid Jungermann/Morgan. But while I enjoyed the film, I can’t say it’s worth a rewatch other than perhaps the film’s climax which is pretty pitch-perfect. For the remaining 95% of the movie though, I’m not mad about it but it didn’t exactly thrill me either.

Overall rating: 5.8/10

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