Although My Friend Dahmer does not resolve the impossible question of 'nature vs nurture', it approaches it with a humanity that is too often missing from such stories.

Isn't there something pathological about the way we privilege the pathological? If you can stomach the focus of My Friend Dahmer, you'll find this rewarding.

My Friend Dahmer is nonetheless a sad film about squandered opportunity. Everybody is losing out in this grim, claustrophobic version of the late 1970s.

It's a frightening film, but more than that it's a drama. More than that it's a tragedy.