By: Winona Young
My Friend Dahmer is the adaptation of the same-titled graphic novel by Derf Backderf. The film depicts the true events of the high school years of notorious serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.
It begins when a lone, blonde teen comes across a rotting cat carcass on the road, pauses, carefully places it in a plastic bag and continues home. Dahmer is played by former Disney star Ross Lynch who lives at home with negligent parents on the verge of divorce (Anne Heche and Dallas Roberts). Aside from the half-friend, half-fan club Dahmer gains from peer Derf Backderf (Alex Wolff) and his friends, Dahmer spends the majority of the film struggling with his loneliness, and violent compulsions, by himself.
Lynch provides a borderline hypnotic performance as Dahmer. Lynch’s choices as an actor are subtle and distinct as he invites the audience to soak in that isolation Dahmer faced and his inevitable unravelling that came with it. He doesn’t play Dahmer as a sadistic, demented young man but rather honestly, as a sullen, socially-awkward outcast with a distinctive gait.
The powerful screenwriting and direction of this film helps to supplement the lead actors’ performances. The camera work lingers and fixates when showing Dahmer’s perspective, while the lighting does a wonderful job of creating visual metaphors as they progressively show us Dahmer’s darkening nature.
One of the most notable aspects of this film is the unrelenting realism and honesty given to Dahmer’s story. Writers Marc Meyers and Derf Backderf don’t just tell the story of the young man as some misunderstood teen or simplify him to into a monster: they tell a fair story of how Dahmer changed from lonely teen into sadistic killer.
That, and they show the failure of an apathetic crowd of parents, teachers, and peers that left Dahmer on the outskirts of society. But make no mistake that while Dahmer’s circumstances were terrible, his actions are not permissible. On the topic of Dahmer himself, Derf Backderf advises in the preface of his comic to “pity him, but do not empathize with him.” My Friend Dahmer ultimately peels back the layers of a serial killer not so as to re-write his reputation, but so that we truly see the whole horrifying portrait.
