The Brilliant Writer Behind Persepolis Directed Ryan Reynolds' Best Performance

Iranian-French writer and filmmaker Marjane Satrapi has died at the age of 56. A statement released by her friends and family has announced that she "died of sadness" after the death of her husband, Mattias Ripa, a little over a year earlier. (Rest in peace.)

Satrapi first became known in the literary world when she published the initial volume of her autobiographical comic "Persepolis" in 2000. She would later become a world renowned filmmaker upon co-directing and co-writing the celebrated 2007 "Persepolis" animated movie adaptation. Satrapi continued to work on films as both a writer and director after that, following "Persepolis" with 2011's "Chicken with Plums" (itself based on her 2004 graphic novel of the same name).

Then, in 2014, Satrapi made her Hollywood directorial debut with the surreal horror/comedy film "The Voices," starring Ryan Reynolds. The movie is stylish and strange, and it boasts what might well be Reynolds' best performance. In the film, Reynolds plays Jerry Hickfang, a chipper, happy-go-lucky factory worker who lives in a bright, candy-colored world of joy and wonderment. He also regularly converses with his dog Bosco and cat Mr. Whiskers, with Reynolds providing their voices to boot.

Early on, though, it's revealed that Jerry has schizophrenia and a lot of what he perceives is a hallucination. In addition, he has a crush on his coworker Fiona (Gemma Arterton), which leads to a night where he gives her a ride home only to accidentally hit a deer, and, in the ensuing fracas, deliberately murder her. He then decides to keep Fiona's severed head in his fridge, only for the head to begin talking to him as well, all smiles. What's more, Fiona's head reminds Jerry that he should probably go back on his meds. 

"The Voices" is a twisted, twisted film.

Of course, once Jerry follows Fiona's advice and begins taking his meds, both he and the audience finally get a glimpse of what the real world looks like. His pristinely clean apartment now looks horrendous and cluttered, while the severed head in his fridge is basically a rotting skull, and his pets no longer speak to him. Jerry has, by this gauge, every reason to stay off his meds and keep the comforting hallucinations going. 

Naturally, things don't turn out well for Jerry, leaving us to fear for the fate of Lisa (Anna Kendrick), another one of his coworkers. We'll leave the rest of the film unspoiled, but suffice it to say, things only get more and more twisted from there.

Marjane Satrapi does a marvelous job of making Jerry a sympathetic character, despite his murderous impulses. We don't sympathize with his violence, but we do see the world from his perspective. It's a place wherein his darker appetites make sense, where animals give him advice, and where his murders are little more, at least in his mind, than mercy. It takes outsiders to recognize that Jerry is a squalid and violent person deeply in need of institutional help. 

"The Voices" is bright and comedic but deeply tragic. It's a movie buoyed by Ryan Reynolds' fresh-faced performance, as the actor portrays Jerry, the friendly and helpful Bosco, and the bitter and devilish Mr. Whiskers with equal aplomb. Satrapi's assured stylistic choices are equally astonishing. It's like she watched the most surreal dark comedies of the 1990s — films like "The Dark Backward" or "Eating Raoul" — and made a more humane, confident version of them.

Credit must also be given to Gemma Arterton and Anna Kendrick, who play both terrified victims and Jerry's hallucinatory visions of themselves. They're joined by Jacki Weaver, who plays Jerry's deeply concerned psychiatrist.

"The Voices" was generally well-received, having garnered a 74% critical approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 96 reviews. Brian Tallerico, writing for RogerEbert.com, gave the film three stars (out of four), noting, "Like so many filmmakers before her, [Marjane] Satrapi is exploring the dark underbelly and murderous intent of even the most cheerful, seemingly happy people in society." He praised Ryan Reynolds' performance as well, noting that Jerry has joy in his eyes and longs for normalcy, as opposed to "the insanity that other actors would have focused on and turned into scenery chewing."

A.O. Scott, however, felt differently writing for The New York Times: "Grisly but not especially suspenseful, tongue-in-cheek without any real wit, 'The Voices' aims to hit the intersection of horror and comedy but tumbles into an uncanny valley of tedious creepiness." He added that its script "is too far-fetched to be disturbing and too banal to work as fantasy." Scott was startled that a talented filmmaker like Marjane Satrapi decided to make a movie like this. "Whatever she was trying to do with these talking animals and decapitated corpses," he wrote, "let's hope she got it out of her system."

Satrapi followed "The Voices" with "Radioactive," a film biopic about Marie Curie. The biographical elements are pretty pat in that movie, but Satrapi was careful to include multiple flash-forwards to moments in history when Curie's discoveries changed the world ... for the better as well as for the worse. 

R.I.P. Marjane Satrapi.