45/33
A powerful London theatre critic becomes entangled in a web of deceit and murder. It premiered at TIFF 2023 to mixed reviews and a dark ending that turned off audiences. The film’s distributor has requested a reshoot in March/April 2024, and a new cut of the film, including a new ending, has been released. Near the beginning, and later at Viscount Brooke’s house, the Union Flag is flying. Both times upside down. Nina Land: I grew up reading about you. I wanted to act because of you. I wanted so much to live up to your standards, but you think I’m shocking. Jimmy Erskine: You have art in you, Miss Land. My disappointment is that you couldn’t access it. Easy Talk Written by Manuel Dante and Mathieu Faivre Published by Bam Music Limited. If you’ve seen Sir Ian McKellen with his co-star Sir Derek Jacobi in the TV sitcom “Vicious”; from about ten years ago, you can anticipate the essence of his portrayal of the acerbic theatre critic “Erskine”. who is more famous for sharing his bile than his bouquets. His new boss (Mark Strong) wants the paper to appeal to a much more wholesome family audience, so he wants him to tone things down a bit. “Yeah, right” he thinks – then gets into a fight with the police for his own behaviour and is given a month’s notice from his job. Faced with the looming disgrace, he decides to tone down his seemingly pure image as the aristocratic owner of a snow-driven estate, and to do so, he hires up-and-coming actress “Nina” (Gemma Arterton), of whom he has been far less flattering in the past. She rather gullibly agrees to become the pawn in his manipulative game, which leads to a series of mishaps and from there to a tragedy that perhaps sets the tone for her role as the opinionated villain in prospect. It starts off quite entertainingly with the abundance and monstrosity from the star, but very quickly devolves into a completely distant and rather disappointing affair (no pun intended) that applies to almost every stereotype, as it rather sadly proves that the best bits are all in the trailers. At best, the writing makes you smile and squirm a little uncomfortably in your cinema seat, but for the most part it’s just predictable with characters who are fairly easy to dislike – except perhaps Alfred Enoch’s factotum “Tom” who at least has some human decency to stand up to "Erskine" and his selfishness. Ben Barnes shows he’s aging well, but again, he doesn’t really have enough of a role to develop his love interest character, and Strong is really anything but. He looks good, but he relies too much on a shock factor that’s not that original and wears off soon.
