''Take Me'' is a 2017 American "
screwball
A screwball is a baseball and fastpitch softball pitch that is thrown so as to break in the opposite direction of a slider or curveball. Depending on the pitcher's arm angle, the ball may also have a sinking action. The pitch is sometimes known ...
"
comedy
Comedy is a genre of fiction that consists of discourses or works intended to be humorous or amusing by inducing laughter, especially in theatre, film, stand-up comedy, television, radio, books, or any other entertainment medium. The term o ...
film directed by
Pat Healy Patrick Healy, Pat Healy, Patrick Healey or Pat Healey may refer to:
* Felix Healy (Patrick Joseph Healy, born 1955), former Northern Irish football player and manager
* Pat Healy (actor) (born 1971), American actor, writer, and director
* Pat H ...
and written by
Mike Makowsky. It stars Healy opposite
Taylor Schilling
Taylor Jane Schilling (born July 27, 1984) is an American actress. She is known for her role as Piper Chapman on the Netflix original comedy-drama series ''Orange Is the New Black'' (2013–2019), for which she received a nomination for the Pr ...
, along with
Alycia Delmore
Alycia Delmore (born 1977) is an American actress in films and theater.
Early life and education
Delmore was born in Seattle, Washington. She attended Roosevelt High School and studied at Western Washington University.
Career
She is most famou ...
and
Jim O'Heir
Jim O'Heir (born February 4, 1962) is an American actor and comedian, perhaps best known for portraying Jerry Gergich on the NBC sitcom '' Parks and Recreation''.
O'Heir first became active in Chicago theater and improv during the late 1980s ...
.
The film had its world premiere at the
Tribeca Film Festival
The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by Tribeca Productions. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive programming. Tribeca was f ...
on April 25, 2017. It was released on May 5, 2017, by
The Orchard.
Plot
Entrepreneur Ray Moody runs a business in which clients pay him to experience a simulated kidnapping. An interview for a loan goes poorly when he attempts to explain his business model to an incredulous banker. Although Ray has a strained relationship with his sister Natalie, he turns to her husband Tom for the money.
Stuart, an overeater, has contracted Ray to stage an aggressive intervention over eight hours. Ray tells Stuart he cheats on his diet, and then forces him to consume a dozen of his favorite hamburgers. After the eight-hour session ends, Stuart thanks Ray and asserts that he has lost his appetite for hamburgers.
Ray is elated when a new client, Anna, contacts him, seeking an extended session that will last the entire weekend. His joy turns to scepticism when Anna requests that he hit her. Although initially refusing the job, Ray calls her back and accepts. Ray then performs surveillance on her, and she leaves him a message telling him to be more discreet.
Ray simulates a carjacking, taking her hostage that weekend, never breaking character. He forces himself to take a break to reassure himself that he has the confidence and skill to pull off the scenario. Ray then aggressively interrogates Anna about a made-up client, demanding access to non-existent files.
Although initially scared and obedient, Anna soon adopts a mocking tone, accusing him of being a pervert who has abducted her under flimsy premises. Enraged, he almost strikes her, and she again mocks him for his reluctance.
After hitting her, Ray leaves to pay Tom back. Natalie discovers the envelope filled with money and surmises its purpose, angry that her husband would finance Ray's bizarre business. She confronts Ray and realizes he is using their parents' house for his scenarios; he becomes frustrated when she interrupts his session. After she leaves, Ray hears on the news the police are investigating Anna's disappearance. Rattled, he attempts to talk to Anna, who stabs him in the back with an improvised weapon.
The police show up at Ray's house. Panicking, he binds Anna in the basement as he deflects the police officers' questions. After bandaging himself, he attempts to clear up everything with Anna, who claims to have no knowledge of his business. Ray shows her the contract she digitally signed and plays back her earlier phone message, both of which she dismisses as fabrications.
Confused and fearing he has wrongly kidnapped someone, Ray agrees to let her go. However, at the last moment, he swallows her car keys, saying that he can not release her until they create an alibi that allows him – and Natalie – to escape jail time. After Anna shoots him several times with his pellet gun, Ray attempts to regurgitate the keys, only for her to slip and fall unconscious.
When Anna wakes, she is in her car being driven by Ray and he asks her to cooperate. She punches him instead then Ray put her in the trunk for the rest of the journey to his remote vacation home. There, they discuss their pasts, both revealing that they are divorced. Ray says his ex-wife, who co-founded the business, accused him of criminal wrongdoing. Anna agrees not to go to the police, but asks him to explain more details about what she accused him of doing. She suggests he gets off on violence and power, so he chokes her in response. Anna knocks him unconscious with a fire poker. Armed with Tom's rifle, Anna takes Ray hostage, threatening to shoot him unless he submits to riding in her car's trunk.
At the end of the ride back to the city, Anna happily thanks him for the experience and offers to invest in his business, revealing to the audience and Ray that she was indeed a willing participant the whole time. Stunned, he can only mumble a response before he stumbles back home to see Stuart in a restaurant. As he waves at him, Ray cries, then laughs when he sees Stuart is really eating a salad.
Cast
*
Pat Healy Patrick Healy, Pat Healy, Patrick Healey or Pat Healey may refer to:
* Felix Healy (Patrick Joseph Healy, born 1955), former Northern Irish football player and manager
* Pat Healy (actor) (born 1971), American actor, writer, and director
* Pat H ...
as Ray Moody
*
Taylor Schilling
Taylor Jane Schilling (born July 27, 1984) is an American actress. She is known for her role as Piper Chapman on the Netflix original comedy-drama series ''Orange Is the New Black'' (2013–2019), for which she received a nomination for the Pr ...
as Anna St. Blair
*
Alycia Delmore
Alycia Delmore (born 1977) is an American actress in films and theater.
Early life and education
Delmore was born in Seattle, Washington. She attended Roosevelt High School and studied at Western Washington University.
Career
She is most famou ...
as Natalie
*
Jim O'Heir
Jim O'Heir (born February 4, 1962) is an American actor and comedian, perhaps best known for portraying Jerry Gergich on the NBC sitcom '' Parks and Recreation''.
O'Heir first became active in Chicago theater and improv during the late 1980s ...
as Stuart
*
Brooke Dillman
Brooke Dillman (born Brooke Alley; August 22, 1966) is an American actress and comedian best known as a series regular on the skit comedy '' Blue Collar TV''.
Early life and education
Dillman was born in Kansas City, Missouri. She attended Shawn ...
as Cathy
*
Toby Huss
Tobias Huss (born December 9, 1966) is an American actor, known for portraying Artie in the Nickelodeon series '' The Adventures of Pete & Pete'' (1993–1996). He is also known for his voice-over work on the long-running animated series ''King of ...
as Officer Judkins
*
Alejandro Patiño
Alejandro Patiño is an American actor.
He has guest starred on several television programs including the recurring role of Ralph, Gabrielle Solis's new gardener, on the ABC series '' Desperate Housewives''. Other appearances include '' House'' ...
as Officer Ramirez
* Mark Kelly as Tom
Production
Mike Makowsky wrote the role of Ray Moody with
Pat Healy Patrick Healy, Pat Healy, Patrick Healey or Pat Healey may refer to:
* Felix Healy (Patrick Joseph Healy, born 1955), former Northern Irish football player and manager
* Pat Healy (actor) (born 1971), American actor, writer, and director
* Pat H ...
in mind. Healy brought the script to producers
Jay Duplass
Lawrence Jay Duplass (born March 7, 1973) is an American filmmaker, actor and author widely known for his films '' The Puffy Chair'' (2005), ''Cyrus'' (2010), and ''Jeff, Who Lives at Home'' (2011), made in collaboration with his younger brother, ...
and
Mark Duplass
Mark David Duplass (born December 7, 1976) is an American filmmaker, actor, writer, and musician. With his brother Jay Duplass, he started the film production company Duplass Brothers Productions in 1996. Duplass has written and directed films, ...
, who agreed to finance and co-produce alongside
The Orchard and
Netflix
Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fi ...
. Production took place in
Glendale, California and
Crestline, California
Crestline is a census-designated place in the San Bernardino Mountains of San Bernardino County, California, USA. The population was 10,770 at the 2010 census, up from 10,218 at the 2000 census.
Geography
Crestline is located at .
According to t ...
over the course of eighteen days.
Release
The film had its world premiere at the
Tribeca Film Festival
The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by Tribeca Productions. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive programming. Tribeca was f ...
on April 25, 2017. Prior to Tribeca,
The Orchard acquired distribution rights to the film and set it for a May 5, 2017 release.
Critical reception
''Take Me'' holds a 70% approval rating on review aggregator website
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, based on 23 reviews, with a
weighted average
The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...
of 6.7/10. On
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
, the film holds a rating of 56 out of 100 based on 10 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
Sheila O'Malley of
RogerEbert.com rated the film 3 1/2 out of 4 stars, praising the actors' on-screen chemistry and "an extremely funny script by Mike Makowsky." Nick Schager of ''
Variety
Variety may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats
* Variety (radio)
* Variety show, in theater and television
Films
* ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont
* ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...
'' also gave the film a positive review, determining its ability to "exploit its screwy premise for both unnerving laughs and volatile thrills." John DeFore of ''
The Hollywood Reporter
''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Hollywood film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade paper, and in 2010 switched to a weekly larg ...
'' highlighted Healy's direction in particular, citing it as "exactly the mix of comical bumbling and psychological tension he wants here, executing the premise in a way sure to please fans of his distinctive body of work... and impress a few new ones along the way."
Neil Genzlinger's review in ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' was more tepid, claiming that "parts of it work, but the overall package is never really suspenseful enough to have you on edge or overtly funny enough to be a lark."
Notes
References
External links
*
*
*
{{Jay and Mark Duplass
2017 films
2017 independent films
2010s screwball comedy films
American independent films
American screwball comedy films
Duplass Brothers Productions films
The Orchard (company) films
2017 comedy films
2010s English-language films
2010s American films