Saturdays in particular tend to be full of film on the telly, and tonight I had a double-bill. After the main evening news was Suite Francaise, which I'd definitely heard of, and wasn't sure whether I'd seen - a quick look at the trailer confirmed that I hadn't (probably). So I watched it.
It's set in a small French town during German occupation. So they do that thing where all the French is spoken in English, with English accents for the French people and the main German character (so we can relate more), and a German accent for the only other German to speak English (who plays the villain). The German is spoken as German, and subtitled.
Michelle Williams is a young bride whose husband has gone off to war, and unfortunately left her all alone on a large estate with his mother, Kristen Scott Thomas - everyone's idea of the mother-in-law from hell. Margot Robbie is a villager. Things liven up considerably when the war appears suddenly on their doorstep - the place is flooded with refugees, and German soldiers are billetted with the locals - the officers go to the posher accommodation, so the estate - naturally - gets a very genteel chap. Who plays the piano, and turns out to have been a composer before the war started; being from a military background, he reluctantly signed up.
Well, as you can imagine, the young deserted wife falls for him pretty quickly. And it doesn't matter that they're both married - we learn that he hardly had a chance to be married before he was off to fight, and as for her.. She admits that she got married because her dying father wanted to see her settled (and her mother-in-law is under no illusion that the estate had something to do with it). So she's not really that invested - and when she finds out that her husband was having an affair before the marriage, which continued into it.. (spoiler).. Well!
It's kind of ho-hum. Kristen Scott Thomas is by far the best actor in it - it's a shame she couldn't have had the affair! The two involved really don't have the charisma to carry it off, and the story is predictable. Well, except for the fanciful ending - which I looked up online. I'd probably have stayed to the end, to be fair - except that I figured I'd rather be watching the film that started on another channel just before this one ended.
This second film was The Lodgers - and despite its much lower IMDB rating, I was right - I much preferred this. It's a horror - which would explain the low rating. Really, I do not know what people's problem is - unless, maybe, they resent being scared. Hmm. Anyway, it's set in an Irish village in 1920 - a tricky time, with the First World War not long over, and the Irish War of Independence in full swing. As a local lad finds out, when he returns from WWI, where he fought in the British army, to find himself branded a traitor. Very unfair, of course - Ireland was under British rule at the time, and not everyone was a dyed-in-the-wool republican. But fairness was hard to find. Deirdre O' Kane plays his mother, the local shopkeeper.
Anyhoo, he's quite incidental to the story. No, it mostly centres on the Big House. Which, incidentally, is represented in this film by the real-life Loftus Hall - which is rather cool, as it's billing itself strongly as Ireland's most haunted house! and a damn spooky place it is. Yes, you can go on actual haunted house tours there. Anyway, in this film, it's inhabited by twins - a boy and girl - the last representatives of the family. And, as in real life, it's in a shocking state of repair - the wallpaper and plaster are peeling, all the walls seem mouldy - the main gate looks quite rickety, and the grounds around it seem quite overgrown. In real life, I believe they've tidied up the gardens considerably.
They're an odd pair - well, he certainly is. And the film's events are kicked off by their 18th birthday. He's agoraphobic, can't leave the house, and she's always the one to go to the shop for groceries - in a very atmospheric long, black, hooded cloak. She tends not to be able to pay for them, mind - always relying on credit. Which is related to the visit they get from the family lawyer (David Bradley, looking suitably creepy), who's there to tell them the money has run out. Ah, but they can't let him in, as they have to live by a few rules:
- They must be in bed by midnight
- They must not let a stranger cross the threshold
- They must stay together
This is all related to a family curse, you see. And if they break the rules, a couple of naked boogeymen that live under a trapdoor in the front hall will come for them. They tend to come out at night, and are accompanied by water seeping from under the trapdoor.. water that, curiously, falls upwards, staining the ceiling above. A detail I haven't seen before, in horror. Water features prominently in the film, but you'll have to stick with it to figure out why.
The whole thing is fabulously gothic - the gloomy atmosphere, the squalid decor, the paleness of - well, everyone (but then, it is Ireland).. Everybody pretty much wears black and white, the girl-twin has that fab long, black cloak, and always wears white underneath.. The story turns out to be rather sordid, which fits a gothic theme, and she plays the classic gothic heroine, doomed and waiting for salvation. In the form of that ex-soldier, whose mother (wisely) disapproves of the whole thing.
I read one negative review on the IMDB page, from someone who tends to like horror - but I think he was expecting something more conventional. Me, I think this is highly innovative, beautifully done - and it's great to see good Irish horror. More of the same, please!
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