Let's Kill Ward's Wife

Let's Kill Ward's Wife

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Scott Foley
Produced by
Written by Scott Foley
Starring
Music by John Spiker
Cinematography Eduardo Barraza
Edited by Rebecca Weigold Stocker
Production
companies
  • Lost Rhino Films
  • The Magone Productions
Distributed by
Release dates
  • December 23, 2014 (2014-12-23) (United States)
Running time
 81 minutes[1]
Country United States
Language English
Budget $5 million[2]

Let's Kill Ward's Wife is a 2014 American black comedy film written and directed by Scott Foley. Marking Foley's feature-film directorial debut, the film stars Patrick Wilson, Foley, Donald Faison, and James Carpinello. Foley, Wilson, and Carpinello produced the film, along with Joe Hardesty. The film follows three friends (Wilson, Foley, and Carpinello) who plan to kill their friend Ward's (Faison) abusive wife, Stacy (Dagmara Domińczyk).

The cast consists almost entirely of actors who are related to one another, with many being siblings or spouses. For example, Wilson is married to Domińczyk, who portrays the wife of Faison's character, and Carpinello is married to Amy Acker, who portrays the wife of Foley's character.

The film was released on video on demand on December 23, 2014 prior to its limited release on January 9, 2015. It has received generally negative reviews, with criticism aimed at its humor and portrayal of women, though this is countered by it being somewhat analogous to Murder on the Orient Express, a story written by a woman where an obnoxious man is killed with group consensus.

Cast

Summary

The film follows a group of friends, Tom, David, Ronnie and Ward. Ward is a timid, weak willed person, married to Tracy, a domineering, cruel woman, who enjoys blaming all her problems on him, and ordering him around. Ward is forced to miss a game of golf with the rest of his friends, as it is Father's day and Tracy demands that he spend time with her and his infant son. His friends contemplate how Ward is a timid fool, but that his wife is just a bully. While they play, Ward is unable to do anything as Tracy has put the child to sleep, and she refuses to let him do anything that can make noise.

Eventually, David brings up the idea of killing Tracy, which they all laugh off as a joke. But later, David starts to seriously consider the idea. Meanwhile, Tom tries to help Ward, who says that Tracy might feel better if she had something else to take her mind off the child. Tom manages to get his wife, Geena to go and have a date with Tracy, along with Amanda, David's Ex-wife. Tracy agrees but asks the others not to bring their children. However on the date, she brings her own child, all the time complaining about basic troubles. Eventually the entire date is ruined, when Tracy refuses to change her child's dirty diaper, saying how it won't bother him.

David confides in Ronnie how he wants to kill Ward's wife, in order to help him, but Ronnie points out that it is a crazy idea and that it is likely that they won't get away. Later, at Ward's child's birthday, Tom, gets a call from Robin Peter, an actress whom he had previously interviewed and wrote an article about. She mildly and playfully complains about the bland report he wrote, and asks if he would like a more in depth interview later, to which he replies that something deeper would be nice and they decide on a date. However, Tracy walks in behind Tom, and overhears part of the conversation, and assumes that Tom is cheating on Geena. She then tells Tom, how she never believed that he and Geena could make it work, saying that they are a bad different and how she and Ward are Good different and they accommodate and adjust their relationship. She then goes on to insult Ward and Geena saying that those type of naive people, are so easy to manipulate. She talks about her own desire to cheat on Tom and how she might have already done so. Eventually, Tom in the heat of the moment, goes and smashes Tracy's face in a cake, and she slips and hits her head. Tom then briefly contemplates before strangling her, to stop her from waking up and telling others. When he realizes that he has killed her, he tells Ward that Tracy has asked for Diapers to send him away, while the rest of them, stay at the Party.

Tom takes Ronnie and Geena and shows them the body, initially lying, saying she hit her head, until Ronnie notices marks on her throat, revealing the murder. Ward walks back in and sees his dead wife and Tom reveals the truth to him. Ronnie then calls David and Amanda over, where David reveals information he has prepared beforehand about how to dispose of a body. Ward is initially displeased with this as they then reveal how they contemplated killing her as a joke earlier, but decides to ignore it.

David starts to reveal various methods of disposing of her body which include burial (classic, requires bleach, removing finger-prints, teeth and her face), eaten by pigs( which require her exact weight, in order to decide the correct number of pigs), disposing in the sea (Ward comments on how it would be easy to chop her up and throw her over bit by bit, like Shawshank Redemption), shoving her into a wood chipper (Tom comments on how the chipper could be traced), and grind her body in the house and send it down the drain to prevent anyone from even seeing it (albeit, there would be a problem with noise and the smell). Eventually they settle on burial and dismemberment, stating it would be one of the easiest methods. They then decide to reconvene the next day, before golf, in order to make things seem normal, up until they inform the police of her disappearance. They end up cleaning the kitchen, bleeding out her body and then getting rid of their clothes. But just before they leave, Bruce, Ward's next door neighbor and a police officer, knocks on the door asking about his sunglasses which he left in their backyard earlier. Ward manages to make him go away, but accidentally invites him to Golf the next day. They all leave later, in their under garments and Bruce is seen watching them leave. Tom, who is unhappy with himself, is consoled by Geena who, says how she doesn't blame him as she also wanted to beat up Tracy, after which they discuss the various events of the day and have sex. Amanda, calls David talking about how he took charge of the situation and how that amazed her, after which they discuss bonding with their daughter later. Ronnie, appears mildly trouble by the events and Ward is seen with his son who is not crying, and then he goes into the bathroom and urinates over his wife's corpse.

The next day, David arrives at Ward's house and meets Ronnie, who is severely disturbed by the previous night's incidents. But he is calmed down by David, Tom and Geena who explain how everyone hates this job, but it must be done. They all meet Ward, who is with his son, who slept peacefully the previous night. Ward is happy that his wife is dead. They dismember the body and put in garbage bags filled with bleach. They then divide the bags among the four of them, stating that they will not tell each other where they are going, to hide their pieces. David goes and hides his in an open grave, covering it partly. Ronnie goes and tries hides it in the open area, but cannot bring himself to do it, and breaks down and starts crying.

Before leaving, they encounter Bruce again, who talks about carpooling with Ward before the game, which he has to agree to in order to not seem suspicious. He leaves saying he has some errands before the game and leaves to dispose of the body, but unknown to him he is followed by Bruce.

David realizes that they forgot to disfigure the face of the corpse and inquires the others about it and discovers that Ronnie has the head but is unable to bring him to do it, so he leaves to go help Ronnie. Meanwhile Tom shows up at the same place as Ronnie and Ronnie voices his fears and states how Tom should have taken the fall for the crime and how he shouldn't have been involved. Tom tries to calm him down, by talking about what a horrible mother and person Tracy was, but Ronnie simply accuses Tom of killing her for being a bitch. David shows up and is about to start disfiguring the face with a golf club, but Tom tells him to let Ronnie do it, to prove that he won't talk. Ronnie tries to talk his way out of it by point out how he helped clean the crime scene, but they insist and force him to do it.

Ward returns to his house and Bruce arrives with two trash bags, stating how what Ward has done is wrong only to revel that he has brought, the trash from the party and not Tracy's body, stating how he cannot just use dump his trash carelessly, and that he needs to wait for trash day, and then says how he shouldn't do it again.

Later at the Golf course, Ward discusses with David how Bruce was following him. It is revealed how, David saw Bruce before-hand the night they were leaving and noticed how he was watching them. So he arrived early the next day and placed two bags of Ward's trash in his car as a decoy as if Bruce was following them, then he most likely follow Ward. Then David has Amanda call from Stacy's phone to Ward. Ward's phone is in the golf cart, where Bruce is sitting. Bruce answers the call and Amanda briefly pretends to be Stacy before hanging up, and disposing of the phone. Ward mentions how upset Ronnie seems but David and Tom decide to let him be for a while to calm down.

In the end, It is seen Ward has called the police discussing how Stacy is missing and Bruce even mentions how "Stacy" called earlier. Tom and Geena have a new passion in their relationship. Amanda and David start to rekindle their own marriage. Tom, who feels sad for Ronnie sets him up on a date with Robin Peters, whom he had earlier stated he could easily close a deal with. The movie ends with Ward in bed, waking up to hear his son crying. He looks to the other side of the bed, sees it empty, smiles and goes to help his son.

Production

"I found the older I get—and it may be this way for women as well, but it's true for men especially—it's hard to make new friends when you get to a certain age, you know? You have responsibilities between work and family, and you want to dedicate the time you do have to your kids. So losing friends at any age is very difficult but losing friends when you're not making any new ones is even more difficult, and I wanted to look at that as well."

–Writer and director Scott Foley on the inspiration of the film[3]

Originally titled Ward's Wife, Let's Kill Ward's Wife was the first film directed by actor Scott Foley, though he had previously directed episodes of television series.[4] Foley wrote the script in the early 2010s after having his first child. Realizing he was not keeping in close contact with some of his long-time friends, Foley concluded that spouses were the primary reason for friends growing apart in adulthood. He originally planned for the script to be "very heartwarming", but later conceived the idea to have several friends plan to kill one of their wives.[3]

After finishing the script, Foley sent it to James Carpinello and Patrick Wilson, his brother-in-law. Both agreed to appear in the film. Foley, who portrays Tom, had not originally intended to star in the film. However, the crew was unable to find someone they believed fit the part better than Foley, and he decided to play the part.[5] The film's cast features a variety of Foley's close friends and family. His wife, Marika Domińczyk, plays Amanda, the wife of Wilson's character, while Wilson's wife Dagmara Domińczyk portrayed Stacy, the wife of Donald Faison's character Ward. Additionally, Amy Acker, Carpinello's wife, played Geena, the wife of Foley's character. Foley and Acker's characters have a sex scene in the film, and Carpinello helped to direct those scenes.[6]

Principal photography took place over 12 days. Due to the film's small budget, the crew was limited to "a camera and a tripod", with no access to camera dollies or cranes. As a result, the camera remains static throughout the film, causing Foley and cinematographer Eduardo Barraza to include enough movement in the shots to keep viewers from "getting bored".[5] In order to keep the budget down, the actors were paid the Screen Actors Guild minimum of $100 a day, although several cast members invested their pay back into the film.[7]

Release

In September 2014, Tribeca Film and Well Go USA Entertainment acquired the rights to distribute the film in North American theaters.[8] The film was released to video on demand platforms and iTunes on December 23, 2014, and in a limited release on January 9, 2015.[9] The film was released on Blu-ray Disc and DVD on March 3, 2015.[10] As of February 19, 2016, it has earned $31,371 in home media sales.[2]

Critical response

Let's Kill Ward's Wife received generally negative reviews. Review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 17% approval rating, with an average score of 3.5/10 based on six reviews.[11] On Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 based on reviews from critics, the film has a score of 21/100, which is considered to be "generally unfavorable reviews".[12]

Justin Chang of Variety gave the film a negative review, opining that it "torturously unfunny" and criticized Foley's writing and direction, stating that "Foley hasn’t a clue how to make these bougie ciphers interesting, much less how to extract anything funny, tense, shocking, relatable or observant from his banal scenario."[1] Chris Packham of The Village Voice agreed, criticizing the film for being "as vacuous and undeserving of regard as any of its characters".[13] Chuck Bowen of Slant Magazine praised Foley's direction, but stated that "[a]ny pretense of satire collapses by the film's midpoint, however, leaving only the contempt". He further criticized the film's female characters.[14] However, in a more positive review, Gary Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times praised Wilson's performance, as well as the film's "casual charms and deft timing of its appealing cast". However, he similarly criticized the film's second half, stating that "the film's pacing and narrative structure take a hit — and never quite recover".[15]

References

  1. 1 2 Chang, Justin (January 8, 2015). "Film Review: 'Let's Kill Ward's Wife'". Variety. Retrieved January 11, 2015.
  2. 1 2 "Let's Kill Ward's Wife". The Numbers. Retrieved February 19, 2016.
  3. 1 2 Dockterman, Eliana (January 8, 2015). "Scandal's Scott Foley On Olivia Pope's Kidnapping and His Directorial Debut". Time. Retrieved January 11, 2015.
  4. ↑ Patten, Dominic (June 13, 2013). "'Scandal's Scott Foley Sets Directorial Debut; Donald Faison & Nicollette Sheridan Star". Deadline. Retrieved January 11, 2015.
  5. 1 2 Benardello, Karen (January 6, 2015). "Interview: Scott Foley Talks Let's Kill Ward's Wife (Exclusive)". Shockya. Retrieved January 11, 2015.
  6. ↑ Radish, Christine (January 7, 2015). "Scott Foley Talks LET'S KILL WARD'S WIFE, The Evolution of the Story, Getting the Tone Right, the Sitcom He's Writing for ABC, SCANDAL and More". Collider. Retrieved January 11, 2015.
  7. ↑ Pennacchio, George (January 8, 2015). "Scott Foley Recruits Friends, Family in 'Let's Kill Ward's Wife'". ABC7. Retrieved January 11, 2015.
  8. ↑ Siegel, Tatiana (September 23, 2014). "Tribeca Film, Well Go Co-Acquire Scott Foley's Directorial Debut 'Let's Kill Ward's Wife'". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved January 11, 2015.
  9. ↑ Riti, John (November 5, 2014). "Scott Foley's Let's Kill Ward's Wife Trailer Promises To Appall You". Paste. Retrieved January 11, 2015.
  10. ↑ "Let's Kill Ward's Wife - Blu-ray". iGN. Retrieved March 23, 2015.
  11. ↑ "Let's Kill Ward's Wife". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved March 18, 2015.
  12. ↑ "Let's Kill Ward's Wife (2014)". Metacritic. Retrieved January 11, 2015.
  13. ↑ Packham, Chris (January 7, 2015). "Let's Kill Ward's Wife Is a Vacuous, Unfunny Black Comedy". The Village Voice. Retrieved January 11, 2015.
  14. ↑ Bowen, Chuck (January 3, 2015). "Let's Kill Ward's Wife". Slant Magazine. Retrieved January 11, 2015.
  15. ↑ Goldstein, Gary (January 8, 2015). "Review Anything goes in dark comedy 'Let's Kill Ward's Wife'". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved January 11, 2015.

External links

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