There is a delicious and elegant nastiness to this psychological suspense thriller from David Farr, making his feature-directing debut. It is a Polanskian nightmare of the upper middle classes, with extravagant flourishes of melodrama and staginess.
The London it shows us is a but like that in Roman Polanski’s 1965 film Repulsion, and the chamber music of polite dysfunction is a little like Polanski’s 2011 version of Yasmina Reza’s play Carnage. We witness an intimately horrible and psychotic duel between two well-heeled couples: one living in the flat below the other. Justin (Stephen Campbell Moore) and Kate (Clémence Poésy) are laid-back friendly professionals; Teresa (Laura Birn) and Jon (David Morrissey) are conservative and uptight. But they have one important thing in common: both Teresa and Kate are pregnant. The unacknowledged competition and resentment lead to a convulsion of fear.
The movie reminded me of Patrick Hamilton’s classic drama Gaslight and there are touches of Hollywood domestic-menace dramas such as The Hand That Rocks the Cradle – where there is in fact a specific plot similarity. This is a very stylish piece of work from Farr.
