Eating Raoul

When a black comedy is done right, it is, to me, the funniest form of comedy. Movies like The War Of The Roses and Heathers put sick people in sick situations and say to hell with all sense of taste or decorum. Conversely, there’s movies like Monty Python’s Meaning Of Life, which splashes a dollop of absurdity over the gallows humor. The one thing they all have in common in that the darkness, the depravity, whatever gives the comedy that biting edge, is never diluted with slapstick or zany antics. And that’s what hurts Eating Raoul. Ostensibly about a financially strapped couple killing swingers for their money to save up for a down payment on a restaurant, Raoul tries to present this twisted idea as a madcap romp. If leads Paul Bartel and Mary Woronov had a more ruthless, amoral edge, then their dry, deadpan delivery would make sense. If the whole situation was presented in a silly manner, then it would make sense. But the movie wants things both ways, and that results in a movie constantly at war with itself and giving up. The characters are too droll, and the situation is too screwball and farcical. I was occasionally amused, but I wanted more. I wanted the movie to pick a lane and jam its foot down on the gas. Instead, I got a movie afraid of its own shadow.