It's been four years since Ryan Reynolds' one-man-show Buried, which saw the thesp prove his acting chops while six foot under in a box. The Voices gifts him a full and talented supporting cast but it's a film that he also shoulders, cast in a role which requires him to be both the good guy and the very, very bad guy - and the source of the titular voices - despite ostensibly playing just one part.
Working from a spiky script from Michael R. Perry (Paranormal Activity 2, TV's American Gothic), Marjane Satrapi's fourth film is almost cartoonish - which might seem fitting considering she's best known for the graphic-novel-sprung-to-screen Persepolis. Reynolds stars as the deeply disturbed Jerry; institutionalised as a boy, he's now working in a factory in the small American town of Milton, with his induction back into society overseen by a kindly, court-appointed psychiatrist (the wonderful Jacki Weaver).
His performance isn't all broad-brush comedy and crates-of-crazy, though
Sporting a pink boiler suit and a superficially sunny disposition Jerry epitomises the "he always seemed such a nice boy" serial-killer archetype. He develops a crush on Gemma Arterton's mean-spirited Fiona, oblivious to the interest of Anna Kendrick's more agreeable Lisa, and is noticeably delicate and anxious at work. His home-life, however, reveals an even more disturbing picture as he's stopped taking his meds and has started hearing voices.
Reynolds has fun in a role which requires him to hilariously voice his pets: an evil Scottish cat, who eggs him on to wickedness, and a large, dopey Southern American dawg, who acts as his conscience. His performance isn't all broad-brush comedy and crates-of-crazy, though - he draws out Jerry's fragility, the tragedy of his lonely existence and his childlikeness. Just like the town, he's frozen in a more innocent time - in his case before his first misdeed. The Voices swings from darkness to light and Satrapi fashions the delusions of a disturbed, fractured mind into something entertainingly amusing, visually striking and maniacal, even if ultimately she doesn't quite nail the balance between exploring Jerry's mental illness and mining it for tenebrous thrills.