Wetherby Movie Review

Enticing setup: Man finagles his way into a dinner party thrown by strangers; no one knows who he is, but they're too polite to kick him out or even ask about his identity. He spends the night, and promptly shoots himself in the head the next morning in the presence of the hostess.

WTF?

Alas, this crazy introduction never leads to much more than curious rubbernecking, mainly because of the difficult structure it creates. The aftermath of Tom's (John Morgan) horrific suicide is duly chronicled, but it frankly isn't that compelling. Writer/director imagines that our heroine Jean (Vanessa Redgrave) will go to lengths to figure out why exactly this sad kid killed himself, and why he picked her kitchen to do it in. In addition to following a laconic police inquest (turns out she once had a thing with the investigator), Hare takes us to at least three different levels of flashbacks, ostensibly to explain the present.

And so we visit the dinner party in greater detail, and we jump way back to Jean's formative years as she falls in love. And, strangely, we spend the last few days with Tom that lead up to his death -- which is wholly bizarre since the film is told from Jean's point of view. Who's supposed to be remembering this stuff for us? Tom's creepy friend, who shows up with little in the way of explanation? Managing the flashbacks while attempting to sympathize with the various borderline psychoses on display here is trying at best. When we do dig out the payoff of What Really Happened That Night, it feels phoney and unlikely.

Featuring a who's who of British cinema (Ian Holm, Judy Dench, Tom Wilkinson) in supporting roles -- not to mention Redgrave acting her knickers off -- Wetherby has a pedigree which substantially outstrips its small and undercooked story.