Botox Is For Wimps

What are the odds that a low budget Canadian horror film can top a Law & Order: SVU episode? In one corner, we've got an undercover Ice T, one-legged surgeon, and evil sadist with mommy issues played by Miranda's husband from Sex & the City. 

In the other, arm transplants and heart-shaped nipples.

A battle for the ages.

Quick Plot: Mary is a poor med school student struggling to pay her mounting bills with every last resource, be it a flirty baby voice on the phone when trying to get cell charges reduced or an open call to perform at a strip joint. It's on that fateful job interview that Mary gets to use her real skills for some fast cash, healing a tortured thug and leaving an impression on the lovestruck club owner and a heavily plasticized stripper named Beatress.

With the build of Betty Boop and the vocal cutesiness of Ellen Greene's Audrey I, Beatress convinces Mary to explore a side career in the underground world of body modification. After successfully transforming an eccentric fashion designer into a life-size doll (i.e., sealed labia and nipple-less breasts), Mary's schoolwork improves to the point that she's invited to a faculty and hospital staff mixer. Living the dream!

Unfortunately, surgeons tend to party in the icky drug-and-rape-and-videotape-it variety, leaving poor Mary disgusted with the medical field. Like any bright young woman whose dreams have been demolished, she quickly ditches school, starts her own business, and practices her new techniques on the perverted doctor professor who raped her.

American Mary was made by Jen and Sylvia Soska, two young Canadians whose previous Dead Hooker In a Trunk caught a lot of attention amongst the genre community. The pair cameos as German twins with extremely unusual plastic surgery requests (arm trades, horns, standard stuff) and between that and a making-of featurette, I really, really wish they were my happy hour bar friends.

The same easily goes for star Katharine Isabelle, best known as the titular Ginger Snaps and P.J. Soles-channeling easy pickins in Freddy Vs. Jason. Mary is a tricky character, one defined primarily by her coldness and reluctance/inability to form any kind of deep relationship. Isabelle easily holds our focus (in virtually every scene) with her distant demeanor. We automatically feel for any struggling college student, and Mary has the added bonus of a cool factor that's hard to deny. We get a few small hints about Mary's human connections (and lack thereof) via a certain iPhone contact, but the writing and Isabelle's performance pull off an impressive feat in character.

I kind of loved this movie. I also kind of wanted to love it more.

See, there's so much potential in the characters and world the Soskas create that it's almost disappointing when the film seems to end prematurely. Mary's patient list alone could have spun off into its own Nip/Tuck alternative television series. I would easily watch a talk show hosted by the adorably odd Beatress (Tristan Risk) with her coke addicted daughter taking on the Andy Richter role. Put Mary front and center on The Bachelorette and BAM! ABC's got at least one new viewer.

The point is, I was completely on board for the ride that was American Mary. I just wish it wasn't over so quickly.

High Points

A movie about body modification and rape revenge doesn't seem to call for subtlety, but the Soska Sisters show a wonderfully restrained approach that works well when needed, including a stark lack of music following Mary's abuse and the clever way we get hints but never all-out visual confirmation of just how weird some of the surgeries could be

Low Points

It's not a bad thing when a movie ends and you're disappointed because you wanted more. Between Mary's eccentric patients and her own carefully calculated fury, there seems to be so much unique territory that could have been explored had the film not ended so abruptly

Okay, but I will take issue with Mary's "I'm poor" apartment, which included an awesomely modern spiral staircase and retro countertop that most hipsters WISH they could afford

Lessons Learned

Good surgeons don't make mistakes (because, presumably, killing patients would render them 'not good')

People just don't bring resumes to stripper job interviews anymore

Torturing and/or genetically modifying the human body is an act best done while wearing 6" heels

Rent/Bury/Buy
I made the mistake of splitting my viewing of American Mary (45 minutes before work, one hour a workday later) which hurt the flow of the film in a very specific way. Because I had broken up the running time, I had no idea where/when the climax would happen, meaning when it hit (no spoilers) I felt slightly empty, as if there should have been something far bigger. It's hard to tell whether that's a fault of the film or just a side effect of breaking a watch into two parts, but that aside, I heartily enjoyed this film. Katharine Isabelle gives an intriguing and unique performance aided by some fun supporting characters. The script provides a healthy balance of chuckles and gasps, and the topic of body modification is handled with respect and humor. I for one am looking forward to the Soska sisters' next venture, even if/especially since it's apparently a sequel to that Kane kal-assic, See No Evil.