Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Matt Winn
Starring: Shirley Henderson, Alan Tudyk, Rufus Sewell, Olivia Williams, Indira Varma
The basic setup of Hitchcock's macabre comedy
The Trouble with Harry is transferred from rural Vermont
to the upper middle class milieu of North London in
The Trouble with Jessica. When it comes to comedies in which the characters spend a lot of time
lugging a corpse around, there's a thin line between
The Trouble with Harry and
Weekend at Bernie's, but director Matt Winn's film manages to stay on just the
right side of that line.
You'd be forgiven for mistaking
The Trouble with Jessica as having its roots in the stage,
as most of the drama plays out in a single location, the enviable home
of married couple Tom (Alan Tudyk) and Sarah (Shirley Henderson). It's not to be their home for much longer however, as due to falling
into financial troubles they've had to put it up for sale. Having
received an offer, Tom and Sarah invite another married couple, Richard
and Beth (Rufus Sewell and Olivia Williams, who recently played husband and wife in
The Father), to a farewell dinner. Much to Sarah's annoyance, Richard and Beth
arrive accompanied by an uninvited guest, novelist Jessica (Indira Varma).
The five parties all met in college, when Jessica took both Tom and
Richard as lovers. A free spirited singleton, Jessica has continued to
flirt with the two men in the years since, and there are suspicions that
she may have had an affair with one of them, named as "Mister X" in her
latest book. While the two couples have settled down into middle class
conformity, Jessica has steadfastly refused to embrace such bourgeois
ways. This leads to an argument with Sarah over their disparate values,
with Jessica storming out into the garden. When the others head out to
talk her back inside they discover she's hung herself from a tree.
Thus begins a moral back and forth as the various parties debate how to
handle the situation. Fearing the incident will dissuade their buyer,
Sarah suggests moving Jessica's corpse to her own apartment and making
it appear as though she killed herself in her own home. Tom is shocked
at his wife's suggestion but comes around to her point of view pretty
quickly. Beth is horrified at the idea, but when Sarah threatens to
blackmail Richard over an illegal manipulation of some legal papers in
his work as a solicitor, the two couples find themselves in reluctant
lockstep.
What follows is part blackly comic farce and part morality play. The
former involves all sorts of Fawlty Towers-esque shenanigans as Jessica's corpse is moved from one location to
another in an attempt to avoid detection by prying eyes. Various
interlopers threaten to ruin the devious plot, including a pair of
police officers, an elderly neighbour determined to have Jessica sign
one of her books, and the buyer (Sylvester Groth), a rather
sinister German man involved in shady dealings himself as a "consultant"
for oil firms.
The central quartet pull off the scenario with comic aplomb. Sewell,
who has recently reinvented himself as something of an evil Jude Law, is
the standout as Richard, an amoral cad who jokes about the rapists he
defends in courts ("I'm good with rapists," he boasts). For all his
machismo, he's the one who crumbles the most when faced with the
ghoulish scenario and spends much of the film being put in his place by
Beth. Tudyk is a natural for a nebbish role like Tom, his cartoonish
features a portrait of panic throughout.
While most of the comedy is generated by the male leads, it's their
female counterparts who handle the film's more dramatic side. A moral
arm-wrestling match is played out constantly between Sarah and Beth,
with the former often referring to her working class roots to guilt trip
the privileged Beth into seeing her side of things. Watching Henderson
and Williams spar, we're left to wonder why both actresses haven't
gotten more work in recent years.
The Trouble with Jessica never fully leans into the
darkness of its theme. There are some truly macabre moments - like when
Richard has to snog Jessica's corpse when he's caught lugging the body
through the corridors of her apartment complex – but the film never
allows itself to get into the weeds regarding the tragedy that sparks
its comic premise. Turning a suicide into the basis for an extended
comedic narrative will likely prove a turnoff for many potential
viewers, but if you're willing to get sucked into the film's tasteless
hijinks, there's some wicked fun to be had here.
