But make no mistake - it is absorbing human drama, quite unique in our age of comic book heroes and lurid reality TV. Watching a kid as painfully awkward and then as deeply depressed as Dahmer go through the torture of Middle American high school can be truly excruciating, all the more so because it seems to be happening in slow motion, like watching a car crash. At times watching the movie can be tough going, but not for the reasons you might think. It's all the more tragic - for Dahmer's victims and their families, but also for Dahmer himself - when we see that there was just enough to the guy. Which way will he take? Will he end up just being an eccentric, or will he take that other, infinitely darker road? We all know the answer, and of course the movie has a strong tragic element to it. Yes, as a reader of the graphic novel may have suspected, the pace ends up being a bit slow, but it's still compelling stuff - the viewer is there just as Dahmer arrives at a fork in the road of his life. In terms of storytelling, the movie works. On the one hand, I was excited, but on the other was quite curious how the relatively brief story could be turned into a feature length film. I'm a fan of Derf's graphic novel about his teen experiences in the late '70s with Jeff Dahmer - as a result I had mixed feelings about a film version.
