My Dead Boyfriend

As others have outlined, this is a story about an underachiever who gets fired from her temp job and comes home to find her boyfriend, Primo, sitting dead in front of the TV. She starts to learn about a colorful secret life that he had while with her and before meeting her.

The premise is interesting, but there is some unevenness to the delivery and unfortunately Heather Graham's delivery of lines is even worse. There is an attempt at dark comedy, but it is not subtle. That said, her adventure in discovering Primo's past via a diverse selection of his friends and family is watchable, especially since it is set in New York.

Never having heard about the 2016 comedy "My Dead Boyfriend" certainly didn't prevent me from sitting down to watch it here in 2025, as I had the opportunity to do so.

Writers Billy Morrissette and Arthur Nersesian put together a script and storyline, that while being semi-watchable, sort of fell short of entertaining me properly. Now, I am a little bit at a loss here, because "My Dead Boyfriend" is labeled as a comedy. But I have to say that I was struggling and failing to find the comedy throughout the 89 minutes that the movie ran for.

I have to say that I had expected quite something else than what this movie turned out to be, which was sort of an odd mixture of drama and light comedy, but without being funny.

Of the entire cast ensemble, I was only familiar with Heather Graham, Griffin Dunne, John Corbett and Gina Gershon. The acting performances in the movie were fair.

This is definitely not a movie that I will ever return to watch a second time.

My rating of director Anthony Edwards's 2016 movie "My Dead Boyfriend" lands on a generous four out of ten stars.

I took a chance on this movie after seeing the low IMDb ratings, largely because it starred the magical Heather Graham. And boy, does she deliver. For example: Every time she tells someone that her boyfriend is dead, check out her casual, distant, throwaway delivery of the line. It's slightly different but funny each time. That's craft!

The supporting cast shares Graham's idiosyncratic acting style, which works well with the odd but interesting plot twists and the occasional cartoon animations that are tossed in randomly and never really explained. But somehow, they seemed to fit. Some of the lines were laugh-out-loud funny. A weird comedy about someone's dead boyfriend may not be to everyone's taste, but if it sounds intriguing, check this one out.

It's pre-2000 NYC. Mary McCrawley (Heather Graham) gets fired from her temp job. She comes home to find her loser temp boyfriend Primo Schultz (John Corbett) dead in front of the TV. She's left with his dog. It's a long line of loser temp boyfriends. Zoe (Katherine Moennig) is her best friend. She's mildly taken with Joey Lucas (Griffin Dunne)'s credit card. Helene (Gina Gershon) tells her about Primo who seems to be completely different than the loser that she knew. Howard (Scott Michael Foster) inspires her to write about him and enter into a contest. She finds his baby mamma Sue Watt and joins her band.

I love Graham but she's not a lead comedian type. She's more of a straight man who can do odd deadpan. I can't tell if the material is actually funny but the movie isn't. It's mildly quirky at best. This character would be cute as a twenty something slacker. As a thirty something, it's no longer cute. I don't hate this except for its weak attempts at being funny.

Mary, who is living with Primo, whom she considers a rather loser, gets fired from her temp job and comes home to find him dead. The humor is on the flippant side, and not for all tastes. But Mary finds out that not only do most people know who Primo is, many have slept with him, and some consider him quite an accomplished artist. She finds out he had an entire life she knew nothing about. But then she hadn't been with him that long. And her circle of friends are some interesting characters. It is a breezy and fun movie but not something of a great cinematic feature.