Since its January premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah, Michael Winterbottom's The Killer Inside Me, an adaptation of the 1952 novel by Jim Thompson, has been greeted with controversial receptions at almost every venue at which it has played. Citing the film's portrayals of extreme violence against women, many critics and audience members have labeled it misogynistic. At many screenings, noticeable portions of the audience have walked out. Following others, critics and commentators have described the film as one that left them feeling physically ill.

As for what I thought after seeing the film myself... Let's just say that it definitely isn't the feel-good movie of the year. As Casey Affleck's Lou Ford beats to death two women, Winterbottom's unflinchingly realistic and drawn-out depiction of both acts is one that definitely veers far away from the often stylized depictions of violence that somehow turn even the most brutal acts of violence into more of a thrill than a punch in the gut. The fact that Winterbottom only shows the violence inflicted against the female characters—despite several men also being killed—makes Ford an even more threatening character to spend 109 minutes with as a female audience member. But while the film is disturbing, uncomfortable to watch, and blatantly depicts misogynistic behavior, considering it is not only about a sociopath but told from his perspective, to lose any of those elements would be to tell a different story.

If you are looking for a suspenseful thriller, The Killer Inside Me is not going to be it. While no one else in the town seems to be aware that Ford might be anything other than a perfect gentlemen, we pretty much know from the very beginning that he's got some serious issues. What we get to watch is that sociopathic behavior coming (back) to life. And what is interesting to observe are the specific incidents that kick off his downward sociopathic spiral and the extreme fear of exposure that keeps it spiraling until everything literally goes up in flames. Sure, Ford may be a murderer and a rapist, but at the center of almost every one of his actions is still a strange sense of justice and an intense need to at least appear (and possibly even believe himself to be) on the right side of wrong. The problem for him is that more important to him than actual justice is his own image as a just man. And so unfolds a story in which he will stop at nothing to punish those he believes to be in the wrong and destroy any evidence that even insinuates that he might be in the wrong himself.

On his way to meet Joyce (Jessica Alba), the prostitute who he begins sleeping with and abusing and later beats to death, he tells us, "You're a man and a gentleman or you aren't anything at all." And as he commits actions that prove him to be far from what anyone would describe as a gentleman, it is as if each is just another attempt to keep people from seeing the "nothing" that he is. Although he initially treats Joyce with courtesy and politely tells her that she needs to get out of town, it is only when she verbally and physically attacks him and accuses him of being "a bad guy" that his abuse begins as what comes off as more of a punishment for what she has said about him than for her illegal activities. Although he repeatedly tells Joyce he loves her, no sooner does he tell us of a plan in which she is merely a tool to enact punishment on another man she is sleeping with who Ford believes killed his brother, and, let's be honest, a woman who he probably believes he is rightly punishing for her own immoral profession. Even as he brutally beats Joyce, he keeps telling her "I'm sorry. I'm sorry," somehow recognizing that what he is doing is wrong and hurtful, yet compelled by a sense that it must be done to add up to some "right."

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