Pretend I’m Nicole Kidman. I promise you I’m going somewhere with this. So I’m Kidman, and a stylist has picked out a full ensemble for me to wear that includes a dress. The dress is nothing I’m really wild about; I could pass on it easily. But the dress is paired with matching shoes, jewelry and other accessories that impress me so much that I wear it all anyway. The next day, there are photographs of me in my look, yet people really can’t seem to make up their mind whether they loved it or hated it. The Vicious Kind is kind of like that for me. I know I didn’t hate it, but I don’t think I loved it either. The movie didn’t live up to my expectations, which I admittedly half-formed just by the neat movie poster. You could say I was prejudging it not just by its cover but the inside book flap too! (I’m good like that.) The Vicious Kind is a tangled, flawed film that I respect for its accessories of artistry but still found unsatisfying as a whole.

The movie centers on two brothers and one of their girlfriends. Caleb Sinclaire downright hates women and is none too pleased when his younger brother Peter brings his new girlfriend home for Thanksgiving break. A love triangle ensues, because that’s what happens in movies when you have two guys and a girl (even if there’s not a pizza place). The film goes out of its way to not be too formulaic about this love triangle, and sometimes left me wondering if they were putting too much effort into trying to confuse viewers simply for the sake of eliminating predictability.

The cast is solid with Adam Scott as the inscrutably confused Caleb, Brittany Snow as Emma the girlfriend (taking quite a role departure from the teenage bubble-gum movies she’s been loved for), J.K. Simmons as Caleb’s dad (who Caleb amusingly only referred to as “Donald” in the way you’d reference “The Pope”), and Alex Frost as Peter.

I suspect Snow may have been cast partly for her popularity. While she does an excellent job of crying throughout the movie, I would have liked to see an unknown face for the role of Emma. It was difficult to disengage myself from “that’s Brittany Snow” while watching because there were too many similarities to how I view the actress (”I’m a pretty girl but totally misunderstood!”) and how I viewed the character (”I’m an attractive gal, and you don’t understand me!”) Her annoying naivete makes her the villain of this movie, even when set up against the truly ruthless and jaded Caleb.

Within The Vicious Kind were excellent snippets of dialogue that seemed to reflect real life’s awkwardness (your life is just as awkward as mine, admit it), and the plot had some truly twisted back-story. I particularly liked the scene locations, set designs, use of camera angles (in the opening shots we never see a woman’s face because of Caleb’s mindset against women) and the overall cinematography. All of those elements particularly came into the foreground of the movie-watching experience, whereas usually they hide behind good performances and/or people with big names that rhyme with Mulia Globerts. The reason I could never give this movie a thumbs-down is because I can tell that people (like writer/director Lee Toland Krieger) really put effort and care into making this movie.

The end of the movie had problems, though. Problems galore. There was a random Lifetime movie moment that was out of place and should have at least been played less tenderly. The last few minutes were poorly executed. I was actually angry it was the end of the movie because of the end. It’s not that I just disagreed with the end – I can disagree with the end of a movie and still like/respect it – it was just wrong. It felt wrong. I’m a chick so I’m allowed to use my gut instinct on some things. I could tell you why it was wrong in more detail, but that would pretty much spoil the entire movie for you. I actually still recommend watching The Vicious Kind if you enjoy raw, dark Indie flicks. It might not be perfect, but I’ve yet to encounter anything that is.