Funny, chilling and severed-head-in-the-fridge dark: The Voices (15) starring Ryan Reynolds, Gemma Arterton and Anna Kendrick reviewed

While his dog Bosco is deep-voiced, lovable and trying to keep him on the right track, his ginger cat Mr Whiskers is foul-mouthed, Scottish and urging him to do unspeakable things.

Reynolds, as will make sense while you watch, voices both.

What an odd film The Voices is, but a gem nonetheless.

Oscar nominated director Marjane Satrapi told News Shopper when the film premiered at last year’s Sundance in Greenwich that the script ‘was so f***** up that I had to do it’ – and it doesn’t seem to have gotten less so as she brought it off the page.

Soon-to-be Marvel superhero Deadpool, Ryan Reynolds is a likeable if kooky singleton called Jerry who works on the factory floor at a small-town bathroom warehouse.

He’s tirelessly upbeat, keen to get on and make a good impression – especially with the office hottie Fiona (Gravesend’s Gemma Arterton).

The thing is, he’s clearly had a troubled past – we learn early on that he’s got a court enforced psychiatrist – and his vacant optimism is a little bit off.

Then we learn that his pets are talking to him – the cat’s a right git – and things quickly go off the rails. It all gets very dark, as in talking-heads-in-the-fridge dark.

People wonder what drives gruesome serial killers and we assume mental illness, but it’s a hard thing to make us like them.

When we spoke to Satrapi, she told us: “How come there is this guy who is a killer, a psychopath who kills a woman and chops her into pieces, how come I like him? How am I going to make it? How am I going to make people like this guy, because when you do these things people normally don’t like you?”

What’s odd is the way a killer’s story is told from within their mental illness. As an audience, we never feel like what Jerry’s doing is right but we do feel for him.

Satrapi’s use of colour and dream-like sets mirror Jerry’s delusion and jar chillingly with the ‘reality’ of when he takes his meds or the few scenes where we are not in his world.

In some ways, Jerry is the anti-Patrick Bateman. In American Psycho, Bateman wants to kill but the audience is unsure if he does. Jerry wants to be a good guy, things just get out of hand.

There are moments in the The Voices where you get that sick feeling in your stomach – you empathise with the guy but he’s seriously ill.

At other times, it’s a pretty funny comedy. That smashing together of genres makes the film more discombobulating but probably more powerful.

Anchoring The Voices is a determined turn from Reynolds. Most of his work is with his eyes - flickering between happy, heartbroken, crazed and incredibly vulnerable.

The supporting cast includes a sassy Gemma Arterton and a very likable Anna Kendrick.

Just when it all looks like we’re headed towards more straightforward territory when the net draws in, The Voices gets fully weird with a musical finale featuring Jesus.

The Voices (15) is out March 20.

FOUR out of five stars

• READ OUR INTERVIEW WITH MARJANE SATRAPI ABOUT THE VOICES, HERE