The Perfect Guy – Film Review by Shane Larkin

Director: David M. Rosenthal
Writers: Alan B. McElroy (story), Tyger Williams (screenplay)
Stars: Sanaa Lathan, Michael Ealy, Morris Chestnut

You probably know how this one goes. Woman meets perfect man, man exhibits violent tendencies, woman pushes him away, begetting disastrous consequences as man reacts in dangerous and dramatic ways. “If I can’t have you, no one will”, that kind of thing. The Perfect Guy is the latest in a long, illustrious and depraved cinematic line of “girlfriend/boyfriend from hell” movies, lurid tales of psychopaths and the objects of their obsession. These range from the dramatically weighty likes of Basic Instincts to the barmy schlock of something like this year’s Jennifer Lopez vehicle The Boy Next Door, and The Perfect Guy’s most egregious sin is that it lacks the nerve to reside at either of these tried and true poles. Instead it’s content to coast on nothing but tired clichés and dramatically inert thriller conventions. The fact that it wastes a talented and fully game cast in the process and force feeds them painfully clunky slops of dialogue to hurl back up is cardinal sin number two.

A fulfilling job with a vaguely defined lobbying firm (whose reputation she would “never jeopardize”, in case you were wondering), supportive girlfriends with whom she can jog and eat lunch, sane parents and a house so sleek and symmetrical it feels like a model home no one lives in, Leah (Sanaa Lathan) is living an almost-idyllic upper middle-class life. But her boyfriend Dave (Morris Chestnut) is a bit of a commitment-phobe. Divorce runs in his family, he says. So she dumps him fairly unceremoniously and becomes smitten with the brooding Carter (Michael Ealy). Things seem to be going swimmingly. He’s gorgeous, caring, and charms the pants off of her friends and family. But things, of course, are not quite as perfect as they seem and Carter turns out to be a violent obsessive. Stalking and harassment hijinks ensue, including hidden camera installations, a few murders, and the fellating of a toothbrush.

But don’t make the mistake of expecting a fun exercise in trashy excess, because even the more unhinged moments are handled with little flair or ceremony. It never transcends its predictable genre trappings and you can see around the bend almost every step of the way, checking off every tired trope you can think of. Sanaa Lathan deserves better than this, it is her compelling presence that provides the bulk of the watchability. Michael Ealy probably suffers the most here, his character’s background and motivations are lazily defined and he’s forced to play crazy for its own sake. The dependable Holt McCallany also shows up for a bit and is mostly wasted as the requisite sympathetic detective whose hands are tied.

I think it is a severe lack of self-awareness that ultimately sinks The Perfect Guy. Just a modicum of sentience could have at least thrust the whole thing into the realm of campy, shameless B-movie thrills, but instead it just sort of dangles there flaccidly on screen for the duration, limping half-heartedly to a painfully benign climax.