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Written by Prue Watson | Monday, November 19, 2007 |
Postmodern, sadist and testostorone-poisoned games fuel (hold your breath) Harold Pinter’s redo of the 1970 Anthony Shaffer play “Sleuth,” which Kenneth Branagh has used to remake the 1972 Joseph L. Mankiewicz film of the same title (phew!).
Jude Law stars as Milo Tindle, a part-time hairdresser and sometimes actor, who is having an affair with famous novelist, Andrew Wyke, played by Michael Caine who also featured in the 1972 original alongside Laurence Olivier.
Honest-to-goodness Tindle announces plans to marry Wyke’s estranged wife, who seems pleased to have an opponent then enraged by open deceit. This is how the whirlgig operates: the two men are more excited about their nemesis than their relationship with wife and lover, Maggie.
Branagh’s theatrical and homosexual imitation of Shaffer’s version is rife throughout the subtext. Blatant homoerotic scenes towards the end of the film send the deviously cold characters into lunacy. It is never made clear if these scenes of ludicrous flamboyancy are just another set of thrust-and-parries between the characters or if their intentions are true, and this artifice fuels the film’s lively intensity.
The film follows the bitter duo’s cat and mouse games as they try to trick one another into submission. The first half of the film and the second half seem like entirely different movies. The first includes carefully crafted dialogue, and bizarrely unique camera angles peeking through objects, between furniture and from odd angles overhead, alluding to the original screenplay. The audience is easily immersed in the fast-paced and sharp intelligence of the two dueling masterminds. The surveillance TV acts as a third character, and if nothing else, is the most trustworthy of the trio. It is in this half that Law acts with little conviction compared to the opposition, nerves, and perhaps fear to living up to the original, overtake the performance.
The second half of the film completely abandons the intensity and biting humor the film so eloquently opened with and the acting in this part is exceptional. Law now seems at ease with the role and executes powerful and mesmerizing scenes; arguably some of his best yet. The 1972 playfully twisted tone has been replaced by a more sinister approach to the ruthless games-playing. If words could kill, there would not be a single soul walking out of the auditorium alive.
Sleuth is post-modern to the extremes. Gone are the entertaining puppets, replaced with surveillance TV, a remote controlled house and futuristic interior designs. Branagh creates visually stimulating scenes even though there are only two guys in the house. Coloured lights and moving walls smoothly switch according to the mood. The scenery is instantaneously interesting, if not more interesting than the lacerations both men dole out.
The film is a tiny 86 minutes long, although it feels longer due to some uncomfortable scenes. Sleuth is about male egos - who is going to reign as the alpha male - and it is the fight that is riveting to watch unfold, if not so nasty it is a guilty pleasure.
Sleuth Trailer
Sleuth Official site - http://www.sonyclassics.com/sleuth/
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