Sunday 7 July 2019

A Kind of Murder (2016 Andy Goddard)

I'm sure a faithful adaptation of the tone and spirit of the original - by Susan Boyd - of Patricia Highsmith's 1954 novel 'The Blunderer'. Patrick Wilson gets himself into trouble by lying after his wife's death, having also made matters far worse by visiting another man who's accused of murdering his wife (Eddie Marsan). Meanwhile he's having an affair with an increasingly uncomfortable Hayley Bennett.

After cursory research (yes, Wikipedia) it looks like the novel has the wife (as played by Jessica Biel) behaving much worse, making a motive for killing her the greater, and makes the police detective (Vincent Kartheiser) a possible psycho. It almost needs larger written or acted characters - a Robert Walker type (Strangers on a Train) or a real loony detective (Laird Cregar in I Wake Up Screaming)?

The acting is fine (especially Marsan) and photography and set design too (Chris Seager and Pete Zumba) with limited budget.

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