Twisted has a great many similarities to Taking Lives (2004), released only three weeks later, which was also about a serial killer that becomes fixated on a female detective. Both film also disappoint in identical ways. Both are routine in terms of character and most of all both hinge upon revelations that are absurdly contrived. One expected much from Twisted with Philip Kaufman in the director’s chair, but the film really fails to work at all. Indeed one would have to say that Twisted is the only one among Philip Kaufman’s films that disappoints heavily. All of Kaufman’s other films are intelligent and above average and pay great attention to character, whereas here Kaufman seems to have invested little care in what he was making. The plot twists are distinctly lacking in any real surprise – one was easily able to predict the unveiling of the killer’s identity, while all the victims and plot twists are signposted heavily in advance. There is one quite interesting turn the film takes where it starts to suggest that it was Ashley Judd herself who did the killings during one of her blackouts, but at no point does Kaufman lend any conviction to this idea.

Ashley Judd is certainly an intelligent performer and makes the character far more driven and alive than the perpetually bland Angelina Jolie did in the equivalent role in Taking Lives. Alas one really couldn’t buy the character that Judd portrays here. She is outfitted with quite an unusual feature – that she is drinking to escape the demons of her past and that she engages in casual sex with men she picks up in bars. But these are only character traits that the film adds for the purpose of twist revelations later in the show and crucially the self-destructing, out-of-control character that Judd is portrayed as being is never anything we see any more of beyond the absolute minimum needed to set up plot points. It is almost as though Ashley Judd had contracted solely to do a couple of scenes drinking and one PG-rated sex scene and refused to give anything to the role or emotionally go into any darker or less glamorous territory beyond what her contract specified. There is simply no emotional resonance created for these aspects of Judd’s character. Philip Kaufman has made a number of films – in particular Henry and June and Quills – that push an envelope in terms of sexuality. Alas there is none of that in Twisted. Indeed Twisted quite belies its title promise, both in terms of dark psychology, sexuality or even contortions of plot. A more appropriate title might have been Mildly Curved.