Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Adrian Shergold
Starring: Antonia Campbell-Hughes, Johnny Flynn, Michael Gambon, Catherine McCormack, Alun Armstrong
English actor Johnny Flynn burst onto the scene with his role in
Michael Pearce's psychological thriller
Beast. While most actors go out of their way to avoid typecasting, here we find
Flynn playing almost a carbon copy of his ambiguous antagonist from that
film, once again simultaneously seducing and menacing a troubled young woman
played by an Irish actress.
Where Beast was set in the windswept Channel Islands,
Cordelia's drama plays out in a bustling London. 12 years after surviving a
traumatic incident on the Underground, Cordelia (Antonia Campbell-Hughes) is beginning to get her life back on track. An actress, she's just landed
a role as an understudy in a stage production of 'King Lear' (you'll never
guess for which part) and is happy to venture out into the streets, though
the Tube is still off limits.
Cordelia's progress is tested when Caroline, the identical twin sister
(also played, somewhat distractingly, by Campbell-Hughes) she lives with,
announces that she's heading off for a romantic weekend away with her
boyfriend, leaving Cordelia alone in their basement flat. As soon as
Caroline is gone, Cordelia begins receiving harassing phone calls from a
withheld number, setting her fraught mental state back a considerable
degree.
A chance encounter with her upstairs neighbour, handsome cellist Frank
(Flynn), makes Cordelia feel a little more safe. But when they go for
drinks, Cordelia finds Frank's phone is filled with pictures of herself and
Caroline. Could Frank be responsible for the phone calls, or as Cordelia
questions him, "Am I safe with you?"
We live in the age of the writer/director, but the truth is there are very
few filmmakers who are equally adept at both disciplines. Shergold has been
directing for over 25 years at this point, mostly in TV, but
Cordelia is the first time he's also worked on one of his
scripts, writing alongside Campbell-Hughes. His strengths would appear to
lie behind the camera rather than at the word processor. For most of
Cordelia's running time, Shergold fashions a moody chamber piece with echoes of
Polanski and the atmospheric British thrillers of the 1960s. With
cinematographer Tony Slater Ling and art director Ceinwen Wilkinson, Shergold creates a tactile environment - you can almost smell the must
from Cordelia's basement flat, a subterranean shelter from the thronging
masses whose feet she watches pass by her widow. It's an attractively
mounted film, but Shergold knows not to allow his camera to distract from
the two central performances, which is where the film's true strength
lies.
Unfortunately, Shergold and Campbell-Hughes' writing is found wanting,
peppered with cringy, on-the-nose storytelling and eye-rolling dialogue
("We're the same, you and I," a character sneers at one point). After
setting up an intriguing cat-and-mouse game between Frank and Cordelia, the
film doesn't know what to do with this dynamic, and it descends into the
sort of cliches you'll be familiar with if you've ever witnessed a TV soap
opera play out a stalker plot-line.
