In its infamous finale, a woman is tricked into eating her children. The multiple limb hackings in Titus Andronicus are part of a smorgasbord of grotesque recrimination that also includes adultery, murder, rape and mutilation.
But most of the film consists of Ricciardi fighting against the dying of the light, recounting the discomfort of recovering from chemo (years of hangovers proved useful training, he says), the ridiculous indignities of radiotherapy and other treatments, weird side-effects such as eyelashes growing longer than usual, inept bedside manners from medical professionals, and the administrative screw-ups that punctuate the process.
Like those, it scours our culture's incessant preoccupation with physical beauty, both the lusting for it and the lengths we will go to get and keep it. But The Beauty possess a mind of its own as it expounds on rich themes that Murphy's been interested in, mixing humor with black humor while he comments on sinfully glamorous lifestyles and the dark side of human nature and desire.
Roald Dahl made his career writing children's books that dared to be mean (yes, sometimes in rather unfortunate ways). Across almost 20 novels, the British author spun fantastical tales with unsentimental wit, infusing his work with darkly morbid humor, blithe child endangerment, rotten and antagonistic adults, and a willingness to occasionally laugh at the misfortune of others. And no other work of Dahl's gets more pitch-black than "The Twits," a thin, acidic little text about deeply repugnant people.
Beneath ominous skies and set within flat, green parkland, Lee Madgwick's folly-like buildings strike an unsettling note. His surreal paintings feature dilapidated facades and uncanny shrubbery against cloudy, deep gray skies-usually with something just a little strange going on. In "Drift," for example, bricks dislodge from the top of a boxy structure and float into the sky one by one, and "Fracture" defies gravity altogether with a hovering apartment tower that crumbles from below.
Consume Me is a life sim about the worst parts of its protagonist's life. Like any life sim, it asks you to spend your time wisely to manage stats that measure your character's achievements. Only here, instead of running a farm and making friends, you're maintaining a diet, studying for exams, and trying to keep your boyfriend from breaking up with you.
