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There exists a version of this movie where the scenery could be chewed to death by a cast who knew exactly how hopeless the screenplay really was as written. Instead, the actors make the fatal miscalculation of playing the material seriously. The result is that none of them really register; they walk into scenes to recite lines of dialogue that are baldly functional, with no particular cadence or flavor, and then they either a) exit the scene; b) stand there; c) die. It wastes the talent of actors who have already proven themselves too good for this material, by tethering them to a wooden screenplay that cheats them out of any resonance.

Movies like this are thinly-veiled cautionary exercises about the dangers of being seduced by the man/woman you don’t really know, yet who seems to be the absolute ideal. They can be done well. The problem with The Perfect Guy is not rooted in its unoriginality, but its simplemindedness. The characters have no attributes beyond those that are required for the immediate scene. There is nothing uttered or done that is thoughtful or psychologically sound or wise or even particularly provocative; nobody seems capable of the higher thought necessary.

Even Carter, IT security expert and occasional sorcerer, is reduced to stomping around and breaking things when he is challenged. You would think someone so skilled and dedicated at keeping up appearances and a clean record would have developed more discipline and control when presented with a nosy neighbor. You’d be thinking harder than the screenwriter did.

To the extent that we’re able to parse out any meaning at all from the paint-by-numbers story and screenplay, it’s pretty ugly. In a movie that allocates no time for development of its protagonist or any of the side characters, precious lines are taken to spell out Carter’s background as a foster child, and to note his unconventional upbringing, his high IQ, and his skill with computers and networks. He is by a commanding margin the most intelligent and the most unique individual in the film. Before his obligatory psychotic break, he is smooth, controlled, polite, poised. He is the only one developed beyond a line or a trait, or with a shred of brainpower, and he is the bad guy.

David is a standard-issue alpha male who does not want to be tied down, and Leah’s female friends are inconsequential ciphers. The movie gets even more emphatic later on in its suggestion that, if you’re a woman in a relationship, the best thing you can do is subjugate, remain passive and not make waves. This conservatism permeates the entire thing in various ways; the ending would seem to suggest otherwise, but all it really does is reinforce a message to gullible viewers that intelligent, technologically-literate, erudite men are far more likely to go crazy and destroy your life if you even slightly rebuke them.

If the movie has a message, that’s the message. I am aware that there’s an audience for this type of thriller, as the nearly-$30 million opening weekend would indicate. This audience is doing themselves a disservice. I am aware that abuse and harassment within the context of a relationship is a very real social issue that is underreported and too easily dismissed; this movie takes that problem and sensationalizes it into a cruddy fantasy where the potential answer is escalation and vengeance. If it’s a decent thriller you’re looking for, go see The Gift. If you’ve already seen that, see something else. Anything else will do. The Perfect Guy is rote, malnourished, dull even by the standards of September at the box office. It gives potboilers a bad name.

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