Maybe It's Justified

Murder can be funny. Okay, let’s rephrase: murder, in a fictional story depicted in a movie, can be funny (I don’t need anyone accusing me of encouraging homicide). In the right context, with the right setting and characters and situation, the death of a character can be hilarious and then lead to even more comedy (intentional and unintentional). It’s an inciting incident, a moment that causes everyone in a story to react and reconsider who they are and what they’ve done. It can lead to conflict, to tragedy, to relief. It can be a good start to a lot of humorous situations. Murder can, in short, be funny.

The trick is making it funny for the sake of humor. I’ve watched a lot of horror movies over the years (and especially for this site), making me something of an expert in horror movie homicides (not something I plan to put on my business cards), and I can attest that many of the deaths in films are funny, even if unintentionally so. There’s sick humor to be had from the characters in a Final DestinationA series of films predicated on Rube Goldberg-levels of slasher murder, the Final Destination series has gone five films (and counting) to become one of modern horror's more successful franchises. movie getting bumped off in a horribly over-the-top, and overly elaborate, way. But those deaths (likely) weren’t meant to be funny; they’re supposed to be scary, the final payoff for a series of events that has kept the audience on the edges of their seats. Mining purposeful humor from a death is less often performed, but when done right, can feel pretty damn cathartic in its own way. And, yes, very funny.

Let’s Kill Ward’s Wife has a very simply premise: a group of friends love Ward (Donald Faison) but hate his wife, Stacy (Dagmara Domińczyk). The men in the group – David (Patrick Wilson), Ronnie (James Carpinello), and Tom (Scott Foley) – wish they could see more of their friend even as he’s abused, and controlled, by evil, angry, awful wife. The women in the group – Gina (Amy Acker) and Amanda (Marika Domińczyk) – can’t stand Stacy, hate hanging out with her, and think she’s a terrible wife and mother. But Ward is stuck with her as he knocked her up early in their relationship, had to marry her, and now they have a son, Ramon. Nothing will ever change there.

Well, unless Stacy was no longer in the picture. The men joke, one day on a golf trip, that they should just kill Ward’s wife. Well, two of them joke. David, though, thinks there’s some merit to the idea so, the next day (when he should be looking for his next acting job), he goes online to research “how to get away with murder.” He takes notes, finds a lot of solutions, and then brings it to Ronnie to discuss. Naturally, Ronnie says “no” because you don’t just kill someone. But then, when an altercation in Stacy’s kitchen causes Tom to slam her face into Ramon’s birthday cake, and then she slips and falls, and then he decides to finish the job and strangle her, the group suddenly has to decide what to do. And, obviously, the solution is to get rid of the body, pretend Stacy disappeared, and get their friend back. That’s what anyone would do, right?

Let’s Kill Ward’s Wife is a dark, awkward comedy. That’s its strength: it derives much of its humor from the juxtaposition of what people should do when someone dies (be shocked, be angry, call the cops) against what this friend group does instead (namely: none of that). The film mines a lot of comedy out of their absolutely blase reactions to seeing a dead woman in a kitchen, even after knowing that one of their own caused it to happen (and then finished the job). There should be terror and shock and all the natural, human reactions to realizing someone is a murderer (and that someone else is dead), but these friends don’t do that. There’s a dull kind of wonder, and then relief, before they all move on with their lives. It’s awful and hilarious.

This moment, and everything that comes after, starts in the second act. The first act is the slowest, and frankly the hardest to watch. Primarily that’s because the film isn’t funny, instead documenting how awful Stacy is in frank bluntness. Sure, maybe you laugh after her evil ways, or at how she mistreats Ward and Ramon, but frankly the whole of the first act is there so you get on board with the idea that Stacy is an awful person and she needs to die. By the end of that first act I was ready for the killing to happen. “Bring it, please.”

That is, of course, the smart play. You hate Stacy so much by the end of the first act that, when she does finally die, you feel relief too. If Stacy had been nice, or sweet, or anything else, then her death would have been a moment to expose how awful all the people around her could be. These people frankly didn’t care that she died, were happy about it, and they react like getting rid of her body is more of an inconvenience than anything else. Stacy has to be truly evil for that to play because, otherwise, these people would be monsters. Well, okay, they are monsters, but it’s harder to feel that when Stacy is so much worse.

It’s in the second act that the film truly finds its feet and becomes hilarious. That’s because, with Stacy out of the picture, the film can mine comedy from the rest of the group. Their reactions to her death, all of them just staring at her corpse like, “huh, so this is a thing.” The group debating ways to dispose of a body via what they’ve seen in movies. “Oh, that is such a good film!” while her body is sitting in a tub two rooms away. The characters all discussing the mundanities of suburban life after cutting up her corpse and getting it ready for disposal. It’s hilarious, and awful, which is why it works.

The third act, by comparison, isn’t as funny. Instead it goes for a crime story feel, like a reverse heist. How to get rid of the corpse, how to do it cleanly without getting caught, how to maintain their alibi’s. While not as funny, it does really hit the notes of a caper film keeping you invested in the story. Hell, at this point I was with the characters for this journey and really wanted to see if they were going to get away with it or not. It’s a solid pivot in the story that works, keeping you following the story as it takes its many narrative twists and turns. It’s a strong move, and I think if the film had stuck to being a comedy it wouldn’t have worked as well. By pivoting to caper storytelling it allows the movie to remain dark, appropriate for the tale it was telling.

The cast helps to sell this dark comedy. They’re a charismatic group deeply into their characters and their foibles. I like Wilson as David, an aimless actor who only finds direction when he starts planning a murder. Although he’s not the one to cause the death, he easily slides into the role of the leader when it’s time to clean up the mess and Wilson is great balancing between the needed direction of the character while still keeping him a bit of a doofus. “I researched ways to dispose of a body… so there’s the Fargo method…”

I also really liked Acker as Gina, a wife who, after having a kid, finds that her husband just isn’t into her sexually anymore. There’s a wall there she can’t bring down, but discovers that, after Tom kills someone, the two of them can connect… and get kinkier as well. It’s gross, in a way, but Acker plays it with charisma, making Gina vivacious in a way that doesn’t seem as scuzzy as it should. “You strangled her, now strangle me in bed,” sounds awful… but it is also hilarious in its own really dark, twisted way. Acker sells it so well.

But I think the true MVP really is Dagmara Domińczyk. She manages to take a one-act character and turn her into someone so hateful, abusive, and awful that you’re ready for her to die. Someone else wouldn’t have been able to make their character so terrible, to get the audience on board with the idea that this woman’s death would be a good thing. Dagmara Domińczyk does that, and with aplomb. She probably has less than ten minutes of screen time but she turns Stacy into such a shrew that her death really is the release the film needed. Without her, this film wouldn’t work.

To be clear, this absolutely isn’t a film for everyone. It’s dark, it’s mean-spirited, and it absolutely revels in the death of a main character without the usual set of a horror movie to make it feel “justified”. You have to be on board with a normal person (no matter how awful they may be) getting killed to be able to enjoy this film, and I know plenty of people that wouldn’t be able to stand it. But for a certain group this film will land perfectly because it’s made for their warped sensibilities. Trust me, I’m one of them and I enjoyed the hell out of Let’s Kill Ward’s Wife. If everything up until now sounded good to you, too, then give the film a shot. It really is quite funny (in a truly warped way).