Sightseers: A killer couple’s holiday

You’re 30-something and finally meet a man with potential. You start dating a guy who can see past your idiosyncrasies and the years you’ve wasted under the thumb of a manipulative, judgmental and abusive mum. After a few months, freedom beckons when your new beau invites you on a road trip, so you pack up the RV and set out across the countryside for a romantic holiday. That’s when you discover lover-boy has a few quirks of his own—including a homicidal rage that can kick in over a request by a passerby to pick up dog poo. And so Sightseers begins.

Uncomfortable at first, Tina (Alice Lowe) convinces herself that killing is Chris’s (Steve Oram) unique talent and the duo quickly turns into a mousy-but-murderous Bonnie and Clyde in this incredibly dark British comedy.  That’s until the bloom is off the rose and the couple’s other faults surface, putting their compatibility just as much in question as their sanity.

The scenery is beautiful, so seeing blood senselessly spilt all over it due to the actions of stereotypically reserved Brits does come as quite a shock. In fact, in can be downright hard to watch, especially since there’s not much to like about the two angry, morally-devoid commoners who don’t even respect each other as they slowly grow apart while littering the parks with bodies of innocents. As the trip progresses, Chris seems broken down by the toxicity of the relationship and his ideals while Tina is empowered by the control the new direction provides.  Although their courtship (and the movie) is flawed, the ending of it isn’t. It’s completely perfect.