Tribeca Review: The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write About a Serial Killer

The Shallow Tale of a Writer Who Decided to Write About a Serial Killer opens on a defeated novelist and closes on a disco-soaked grin, proving that inspiration can arrive wearing a blood-splattered cardigan and a kindly smile. Tribeca’s 2024 slate loves a “locked-in” premise, and Tolga Karaçelik’s film fits right in—housing its madness inside rain-slick streets, crimson hotel corridors, and one Brooklyn brownstone that doubles as therapy office and crime lab.

Keane (John Magaro) is hemorrhaging confidence, cash, and—most urgently—his marriage to hyper-competent Suzie (Britt Lower). His agent needs a pitch that sells; Suzie needs a husband who isn’t rearranging the furniture of his own self-pity. Enter Kollmick (Steve Buscemi), a soft-spoken super-fan who claims to be a retired serial killer. Kollmick’s offer is irresistible in three ways: a built-in bestseller, field research you can’t get on Google, and free marital counseling—provided Keane keeps the house guest’s résumé off the record.

From their first diner meeting, the film simmers with that odd warmth you feel when someone is far too happy to meet you. Buscemi leans into it, delivering pleases and thank-yous with just enough lingering eye contact to curdle the politeness. Magaro matches him beat for jittery beat; you can watch Keane’s moral compass demagnetize in real time. Their chemistry lands somewhere between buddy comedy and hostage negotiation, and every exchange feels like a dare.

Karaçelik stages the madness against a lovingly heightened New York: lipstick-red carpets, tungsten halos, puddles flickering with neon. Production designer Lance Mitchell and cinematographer Natalie Kingston turn side streets into pulp-novel cover art, while Nathan W. Klein’s score pirouettes from slinky strings to Baccara’s “Yes Sir, I Can Boogie”—Kollmick’s murder anthem and marital pep talk rolled into one.

The film is less interested in knives than in nerves. Gore is rationed out as punch line; the real carnage is Keane’s slide from blocked writer to enthusiastic pupil. That choice keeps the tone buoyant but occasionally blunts the stakes—when violence lands mostly as a gag, the threat feels safely fenced in. Likewise, the promised memoir goes missing whenever the script needs another eccentricity montage.

Still, the movie’s airy menace is hard to resist. Lower sidesteps the “nagging spouse” cliché by lacing Suzie’s exasperation with bruised affection, and Buscemi’s milky-eyed exuberance turns every scene into a question mark with good posture. The result is a thriller that laughs at its own shadows—never deep enough to drown in, but dark enough to make you glance over your shoulder on the walk home.

For anyone nursing creative frustration, The Shallow Tale suggests a cure that is equal parts terrifying and oddly life-affirming: find someone who’ll scare you into finishing the draft, then dance it off to a disco classic. After all, death may be inevitable, but deadlines are optional—and that’s a liberating thought when the cursor still won’t budge.