Everyman, Bristol
What a fucking annoying film.
There were moments where I thought it had been specially created to give some fucking good actors an excuse to indulge their taste for ham acting. But the rest of the time, I thought they were probably just doing the best they could with a fucking shitty script.
It's set in a fairy tale land called Littlehampton, which is presumably located a few miles away from the fucking Shire. I couldn't fucking well get my head round when it was supposed to be set. People talk about the Great War having only just ended; but the fucking police use expressions like "serial liar" and stick pins into maps. And the lawyers say "Objection!" as if we were watching an episode of Perry fucking Mason. It has to be after 1973 because motorcycle crash helmets are compulsory, and after 2004 because black judges aren't noteworthy.
The Shire is ruled by a weird, bigoted, religious sect called the Church of England, which resembles something out of sodding Margaret sodding Atwood. Everyone automatically assumes that Irish people are wrong 'uns and treat women police officers like absolute shit, but there is absolutely no racial prejudice whatsoever.
I suppose I will have to run through the utter arse-wipe of a plot. Edith Swann (Olivia Coleman, obviously) is a member of the weird "Anglican" sect. She lives with her shouty, bigoted, perpetually mansplaining father (Timothy Spall, obviously.) She's the wrong side of thirty-sodding-five -- everyone calls her a bloody "spinster" -- but Dad still makes her write out "lines" from the Bible as a punishment.
As the shitty film opens, she's on the receiving end of a series of obscene letters. They don't accuse her of anything in particular: they are just strings of fucking rude words. Suspicion naturally falls on her shouty sweary next door neighbour Rose (Jessie Buckley) with whom she shares an outside toilet. But even the most fucking brain-dead member of the audience can see that Rose can't possibly have done it (despite being Irish, vulgar, Irish, free spirited, vulgar, Irish and also Irish) because she is the only halfway likable or realistic character in a town full of fucking grotesques. Nice woman police officer Gladys (Anjana Vasan) doesn't think the case has been fairly investigated, and starts to look further into it; which of course makes the shouty, bigoted, perpetually mansplaining (but not at all racist) chief constable (Paul Chahidi) fucking angry, which only makes her more determined. The maverick junior officers spots something her hidebound superiors can't see; but they take the credit when she is proved right -- what a fucking original idea!
I admit that the first forty five minutes of the movie were not complete shit. I even laughed a bit. I enjoyed the way Edith is torn between mortification at the dirty letters and her sanctimonious wish to show Christian forbearance to the fallen woman. But about half way in the is an utter wank stain of a "reveal" -- a twist so fucking ridiculous that it reduced the last hour to a collection of pantomime stereotypes gamely going through ever-more unbelievable motions. You may remember that I shouted "fuck off!" after the stupid twist in the Alan Bennett one about the hospital and "fuck off!" after the stupid twist in the one about the guy who dances with his cock out in the posh country house. This was, if possible, even worse.
The mystery is finally solved by a enormous fucking coincidence. It does not turn out that the real culprit smokes a rare kind of tobacco which can only be obtained in one particular shop. They do not leave a single thread of unusually coloured textile in one of the envelopes. No-one hides a tape recording in a nesting box. But I would have found it much less un-be-fucking-lievable (*) if they had. The climax involves comedic old ladies playing at spies with telescopes and small children hiding in post boxes. It involves, honestly and no kidding, invisible ink. It reminded me of nothing so much as One of Our Fucking Dinos-fucking-saurs (*) Has Fucking Well Gone Fucking Missing.
I think it was Billy Graham who said that truth is not stranger than fiction: it's just that we are less familiar with it. We are told that this is based on a true story. (The rubric actually says "More of this is true than you would think".) Maybe it is; but that makes it much, much worse. You can see the barebones of an interesting film; about assumptions, prejudice, controlling behaviour and a kind of tourette's syndrome by proxy. But this is not that film.
Rosebud turns out to be a sledge, and the Planet of the Apes was the earth all along.
(*) Tmesis.
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