Rope,
the story of an egomaniacal
upper class New Yorker and his obedient ‘friend’ who host a macabre dinner
party with a secret chest containing their recently murdered friend as the
centerpiece of the meal, was always my favourite Hitchcock film. It is filmed entirely from one direction in a
large apartment studio set (with a theatrical ‘forth wall’ missing) and in 10
minute long takes with hidden cuts to make the action continuous like in the
theatre. It is a masterpiece of suspense
and captures the inherent tensions and power plays involved in the phenomenon
of ‘dinner parties’.
The debut from writer/director Christopher Presswell happily and
proudly announces its Hitchcockian influences right from the beginning, as
evident from the brilliant Saul Bass title sequence and Hermann-esque score
(recorded no less by the Prague philharmonic…).
It also openly references TV show Midsomer
Murders, ‘70s cult film Abigail’s
Party and, of course, the board game Cluedo.
Jack (Andrew Fitch), a smarmy narcissist, is introduced in bed with Vera (Isla Ure), the well-to-do wife of his
best friend Frank(Nigel Thomas). In amongst the discussion of their affair
Jack reminds her about a dinner party that he is throwing that evening for Frank,
their old friend ‘Major Burns’ (Tom
Knight) and Inspector Marcus Evans (Dan
March). Vera gets up to dress and
discovers that she is missing an earing, but leaves Jack in bed. As she leaves we see that Jack has the earing
and is has plans to use it to devastating effect later on at his party…
Just as Rope takes place entirely in Brandon and Philip’s 1940s New York
apartment, Candlestick plays out almost entirely in Jack’s apartment. The film then plays with the juxtaposition of
old and new: Jack plays an old vinyl
record on a turntable next to a huge smart TV; two central plot devices revolve
around an old 1930s mouthpiece phone and a modern smartphone; war stories and
board games are recanted and played in a modern wooden-paneling London
high-rise.
The unfolding plot is explicitly
predictable (if you are familiar with the references) and the acting has an
intentionally stereotypical 1950s-aristocratic-parlour-room theatricality,
which at first is jarring but once you accept what the director is doing
becomes delightfully camp. There are
also some great campy one-liners, such as when Jack replies to David’s
complaint of his wife being “irritable” with “What do you expect? You’re
irritating!”
Essentially Candlestick is a throwback to the great made-for-TV movies of the
1970s with a 1950s story and a 21st century sensibility. A timeless narrative of tension and betrayal
presented with intrigue and style.
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