John Kay Movies
- 1995
The Grotesque (aka Grave Indiscretion, aka Gentleman Don't Eat Poets) is a very black, very British comedy that puts an unusual and perversely entertaining spin on the classic tea-cup-and-intrigue mystery. Sir Hugo Coal (Alan Bates) is a grumpy, eccentric English gentleman (and self-styled paleontologist) obsessed with reconstructing a dinosaur skeleton with bones dredged up from a nearby moor. He is also penniless, and so must live vicariously off the inheritance of his smoldering American wife Harriet (Theresa Russell). Enter: the crafty and secretive Fledge (Sting) and his wife and co-conspirator Doris (Trudie Styler) the new Coal family servants. Fledge immediately sets his sights on Harriet and the Coal fortune, Doris on the household wine cellar. When Hugo and Harriet's daughter Cleo (Lena Headey) announces her engagement to demure poet Sidney Giblet (Steven Mackintosh), Hugo is less than pleased, but not for long, since Sidney is murdered soon after and, we learn, his body gruesomely disposed of. As the rivalry between Fledge and Hugo escalates, Cleo, the police, and the poet's shrewd mother Mrs. Giblet (Anna Massey) follow a trail of clues from the swampy, bone-littered moor to the Coal pig sties and finally (rather horribly) back to the Coal dinner table. Though criticized for its irreverent humor and somewhat ambiguous ending, The Grotesque is worth a watch. Sting and his real-life partner Trudie Styler (who co-produced the film) are both wonderful as the loathsome, manipulative servants, as is Anna Massey as the poet's investigative mother. The real stars of the film, however, are not the actors, but the dense, ornamental interiors provided by Jan Roelfs and Michael Seirton. Every corner of the Coal mansion is littered with artifacts and art objects, every frame crawling with worms, frogs, and reptiles. Like a Dutch still life, The Grotesque is simultaneously repellent and attractive, a painterly assemblage of morbidity and dramatic artifice. ~ Anthony Reed, Rovi
- Starring:
- Alan Bates, Theresa Russell, (more)
Willem Dafoe stars as groundbreaking early 20th century American poet T.S. Eliot in this biopic focusing on Eliot's disastrous marriage. Young Tom Eliot meets the flamboyant Vivienne Haigh-Wood (Miranda Richardson) while they are both students at Oxford University in England in 1914. Eliot is studying under the famous writer and philosopher Bertrand Russell (Nickolas Grace). Tom and Viv elope after a very brief courtship, without the consent of her parents and against the advice of Viv's brother Maurice (Tim Dutton). On the honeymoon, Tom learns that Viv suffers from a severe hormonal imbalance which causes frequent menstruation. She is under the care of a doctor who calls her problems emotional and prescribes medications which worsen her condition. Viv is moody, often despondent, and frequently drunk. While Tom works as a bank clerk and tries to establish himself as a writer, Viv serves as his secretary and sometimes his muse, but more and more often she embarrasses them in public with her behavior. Yet her influence prevents Tom, who wants to become thoroughly British and a member of the Church of England, from becoming too staid. Eventually, Tom reluctantly commits his wife to a mental asylum and their troubled marriage continues to plague his life and color his work. ~ Michael Betzold, Rovi
- Starring:
- Willem Dafoe, Miranda Richardson, (more)
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