Sleuth is a drama/thriller directed by Kenneth Brannagh, based on a play by Anthony Shaffer and starring Jude Law and Michael Caine. It's very weird, and it's badly named, because there are no sleuths or sleuth-related activities in it.
Milo Tindle (Law) comes to visit famous crime author Andrew Wycke (Caine) to ask him to grant his wife a divorce; Tindle and Maggie (Wycke's unseen wife, briefly voiced by Carmel O'Sullivan) have been having an affair for a long time. Wycke refuses because he is a hypocritical, sanctimonious asshole, and instead convinces Tindle to pretend to rob his house to steal jewels that he can then sell, Wycke gets the insurance money, everyone lives happily ever after. Tindle for some reason agrees to this obvious set-up and winds up at barrel's end, and the act ends with Wycke apparently shooting Tindle dead.
Next dead, Tindle returns dressed as a police detective and proceeds to scare the bejesus out of Wycke by planting bloody clothes and accusing Wycke of murder. Wycke insists that he just scared Tindle into fainting and then sent him on his way. Tindle lets him twist a while and then reveals himself, and this is where things get truly weird.
The rest of the play is the two of them playing this bizarre cat-and-mouse game, with us the audience never really sure who's in power at any given moment, and then they start flirting openly. Wycke offers Tindle his spare bedroom - basically to become his kept man in exchange for Tindle stimulating his mind - and Tindle, apparently not having learned his lesson, actually considers this. The movie ends with Wycke shooting Tindle dead with his own gun (for reals this time! we assume) and Maggie pulling up outside.
This play was adapted in 1972 and starred Laurence Olivier as Wycke and Caine as Tindle, and it resulted in Best Actor noms for both actors as well as a Best Director nom for Joseph Mankiewicz. I haven't seen that version. This one...well, it's got 36% on Rotten Tomatoes, if that gives you any idea. I did not enjoy it much.
For one thing, it's not believable. I was actually expecting the twist to be that there was no Maggie, and that these men just engaged in these elaborate role-playing scenarios sometimes as part of their own love lives because that made so much more sense than a guy agreeing to rob the husband of his lover when said husband clearly exudes menace (and is a crime writer, for crying out loud). Sure, the dialog (screenplay by Harold Pinter!) is naturalistic and snappy and compelling, but it doesn't make any sense. Also, does England not have a no-fault divorce or something? Why does Maggie need Wycke to "give" her a divorce? Why in the world would Tindle, and not a lawyer, go to see Wycke? (I'm sure these questions have answers but they're not enumerated and they're not obvious.)
But quite apart from that, the stakes aren't really clear. Do either of these men really care about Maggie? What's Tindle's motivation for all this? Is Tindle really a hairdresser? I get the deliberate ambiguity (it's over there, in a box) but the setting of the movie is so tight - just Wycke's house, just these two characters - that we hyperfocus on details and the movie never quite comes into focus.
With that said, the talent is on full display here. Law, Caine, Brannagh, and Pinter are all superb at what they do, and somehow the movie takes all of these amazing components and winds up with a finished product that left me saying "um, OK? So...someone's a big fan of Deathtrap?"
My Grade: C-
Rewatch Value: IINSIAIFWT
Next up: Slither
No comments:
Post a Comment