I've had American Mary lingering on my watchlist for quite some time. I was definitely looking forward to it - I remember it being on a lot of 2012 "best of" lists. I didn't know a ton about it, other than it was about body modification and that it wasn't much of a "fun" horror film, so I had to be in the right mood for it. But I bit the bullet this weekend - and unfortunately it just didn't do it for me. It's nicely shot and well made from a technical perspective, and the body horror stuff is quite well done. It's just a little too tonally inconsistent for me. American Mary wants to exist in a grim and gritty reality, but it is populated with characters who just don't act like real people. Also, the pacing of the film is just a little too intense - I felt like there just wasn't enough room for the story to breathe. It's certainly an engaging film - one that I've thought about a lot since watching it - but ultimately I was let down.
The story is about the titular Mary (although her American-ness is in question), a very promising young surgeon attending medical school. She is having trouble paying the bills, and is looking for ways to make easy money. While at an interview at a strip club, she presents her resume saying she's spent time as an aspiring surgeon. Coincidentally, the skeezy strip-club guy needs a doctor. He's got some very bloody, injured guy he needs to keep alive (for presumably nefarious purposes), and offers Mary $5,000, no questions asked, to keep him breathing. It's obviously sketchy, but she's desperate. This is her jumping off point into the field of questionable medicine. Her next client wants some rather extreme elective cosmetic surgery that no legit doctor will perform. She does the job and is suddenly an all star in the world of body modification.
After a horrific incident with her med-school peers, Mary abandons her schooling and embraces her new career. She runs afoul of the law, but is making to much money (and perhaps enjoying herself too much) to stop. But she also may be losing her mind...
American Mary is, on the surface, a look into the subculture of body modification (elective amputation, horn implants, genital mutilation). While the film is successful at creeping you out at the physical level, it doesn't have realistic enough characters/scenarios to really make things resonate. The bad guys are way over the top in their assholishness, and the people that Mary meets in her misadventures don't seem to behave like real people. And honestly, while some of the body mod folks *look* interesting, their personalities don't coincide - just because you want your nipples cut off doesn't automatically make you a compelling character, you know? The body horror stuff is well done (close up and gross - but not overly so), but your reaction to it is so mired in the primal/base/natural world that it almost feels wasted on people who don't seem natural/realistic. Does that make any sense?
The passage of time threw me for a loop too. It seems like Mary is just done doing her first surgery, and then is pretty much an instant celebrity in the body-mod community. She's no sooner done with that first surgery and she's talking like an old jaded pro. Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I kind of think there would be some fertile ground for drama while she's building her practice. I always prefer a slow descent into madness, and it's a little too abrupt here. (There is an interesting discussion to be had about *why* she's going mad, or if she even actually is. But that's getting big into spoiler territory.)
The acting is pretty solid across the board. In particular Katharine Isabelle is great as Mary. She (obviously, being in the title and all) has a heavy load to carry here, and a lot to convey in not a lot of time. While Mary's motivations aren't always entirely clear (script-wise), there isn't really anything else you could ask for from her performance.
Also, the title. I'm sort of curious as to why American Mary was what they went with. It's got a good sound to it, but it has really nothing to do with the story (unless I wasn't paying attention). And just about every actor in the film is Canadian, and it was shot in Vancouver. So that's a little perplexing.
Still, it's at least an interesting film and has been rattling around my head since I watched it. And it sounds weird, but I'd rather watch a movie that I didn't really like that makes me think as opposed to something I kind of like that fades out of my mind relatively quickly. I can see why a lot of people liked it, but there was enough "off" for me that I never got fully on board.
I would hesitate to recommend this film.
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