My Life with Morrisey

My Life with Morrissey (2003) is one of those movies best enjoyed in a group setting after about seven glasses of wine. Determinedly low-tech and low-budget, the film concerns Jackie, a frumpy young woman with an obsessive crush on the eponymous singer. Part Fatal Attraction (1987), part Better Off Dead (1985), and part just plain weird, My Life with Morrissey chronicles Jackie's swift and hilarious spiral into madness after a sighting of her hero at a local tofu hot dog stand.

Writer/director Andrew Overtoom does a clever job in establishing the Los Angeles Jackie (played by actress Jackie Buscarino) inhabits as an aggressively sunny place that prioritizes surfaces over reality. In short, it is the perfect atmosphere for a dark-haired, chubby Morrissey fan to lose her mind in. Overtoom also appears to have searched high and low for Morrissey and Smiths (the 1980s band which he fronted) paraphernalia; among the objects sighted in Jackie's bedroom are a pillowcase picturing Moz alongside the printed words "Last Night I Dreamt Somebody Loved Me" and a Morrissey doll. Alas, the filmmakers were unable to afford the rights to any of his songs, so a spate of indie bands appear on the soundtrack instead.

It goes without saying that My Life with Morrissey is not for everyone, though those unfamiliar with the singer should not be deterred. Overtoom, who previously worked as a director on the Nickelodeon animated series Spongebob Squarepants, has a knack for quirky humor and manages to retain an appealingly cartoonish tone throughout the film. Shades of Office Space (the 1999 film directed by Mike Judge, whose resume also included an animated series, Beavis and Butthead) crop up in the scenes of Jackie's workplace, and the actors seem to have been directed to emote in a highly exaggerated manner. However, those hoping for a satire on celebrity-obsessed American culture will walk away disappointed; in the end, the film doesn't really add up to much. Still, anyone with a taste for wacky humor will find much to appreciate here.