ME, MYSELF, I

Written and directed by Pip Karmel. Starring Rachel Griffiths

Easily the most offensive filmic depiction of the female psyche since How To Marry A Millionaire, this obnoxious slice of frustrated spinster fiction must rank as a strong contender for the year's sickest movie.

Me Myself I purports to be a post-feminist one-up-for-the-girls chick-flick with balls and bite - but its sexual politics (and portayal of humanity in general) are downright fucking chilling, and enough to make you pine for the enlightened days of Jane Austen.

Based around a parallel-lives/what-if? scenario along the lines of Sliding Doors, it's about an unfulfilled thirty-something singleton (played by the insufferable if ideally-cast Rachel Griffiths) who is beset by a mid-life crisis all doubtless of her own making. She goes on to use the entire film as a showcase for the most stunning non-stop display of simpering-spinster self-absorption ever committed to celluloid. The result is akin to a maudlin, drunken duet between Bridget Jones and Ally McBeal, laced with lashings of self-pity, man-hatred and the sort of festering, wallowing whininess that begs to be destroyed by a capable vet for the patient's own good.

On the surface, Griffiths' character is a card-carrying member of the Cosmo 'I Want it All!' brigade - she's travelled the world! has an award-winning career! owns real estate! and, in short, has fuck-all by way of real worries. But in reality, all she wants (sob!) is a man, despite her scarcely-veiled loathing for the (sub-)species. Hence, she goes home, glugs white wine, weeps into cuddly toys, scoffs chocolate and luxuriates in bath products as a substitute for normal existence.

And so it comes to pass that one day, between bouts of neurosis and misery, our indescribably unappealing heroine gets hit by a car and (worse luck) survives to wake up in an alternative reality, where she has married the ex she always longed for, and has three snotty little kids to look after. Me Myself I (appropriate title, that) then proceeds to demonstrate how lucky she really was in the old reality, and how insane she would have been to trade it in. Her husband turns out to be an out-and-out bastard (not that this sets him apart from any of the film's males) - and while her kids are obviously a periodic source of pride, her shallowness, prissiness and utter selfishness render her hopelessly ill-equipped for the arse-wiping duties required by the motherhood gig.

From here on in, it's essentially a series of vignettes on marital doldrums, each one more cliched and hollow than the last. Griffiths provides all the visual charm of hanging carcasses in an abattoir, while the ethos of allegedly post-feminist womankind is expressed thus: must-get-man, must-get-house, must-get-big-garden, must-nag-poor-fucker-into-early-grave, must-win-war-of-the-toilet-seat, but on pain of death, MUST NOT BE SINGLE.

In the final analysis, it's about as genuinely feminist as Roy Chubby Brown's arse cleavage, but with far less visual charm, and must be shunned by any human being worthy of the name.