Review: I F*cking Hate You

It isn’t often that a film with a title akin to I F*cking Hate You could be described as heart warming or touching, but this strong independent by SABI Pictures manages to fit its way into those categories.

Ron (played painfully well by John T. Woods), in a last ditch effort to get across his feelings to the woman he loved/loves, Carol (Marion Kerr, who is delightful in the role), tries to touch her through the medium of song…albeit one of the strangest and yet catchy original tunes I’ve heard in a film in a long while.

The description of the film is a “radical collaboration” between the actors and crew, with improvisation being the key ingredient.  I must admit when I heard this film was an improv heavy independent, I grimaced.  To me that usually translates into “10 minute mess of artistic projectile vomit”.  Little did I know that this film had REALLY talented folks working on it.

First off, not enough can be said about John T. Woods and Marion Kerr.  They prove that with just a concept of scene and character, the lines that are meant to drive the scene will be there, waiting to get plucked out of the air.  The cinematography was likewise intuitive, and Matt Garrett and Addison Brock III deserve a lot of credit for being able to take a project like this and capture it as well as they did, with a sort of odd mix of detachment and intimacy.  All this coming together like it did means Director Zak Forsman, also deserves a hearty pat on the back.  This cast and crew must have run a tight ship to take a daring concept like full improvisational collaboration and turn it into something that wasn’t just watchable, but enjoyable.

If I had any criticism for the project it would have maybe been to get the action started quicker.  With only 10 minutes to work with, there’s almost a full minute it seems of nothing but establishing, and while I understood why it worked for the character of Ron, the few shots of Carol were a little hazy and confusing. 

This is of course a trivial criticism.  The main points to remember when seeing this film (and I recommend people take a good look at this picture) are great humor balancing touching sentiment, a song with “I fucking hate you” as a lyric, and a Zoltar mug as the story’s lynchpin.  It doesn’t get much better than that.