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Keeping
Mum
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British cinema has always been good at making tart comedies about homely, ordinary people – mothers, country folk, gardeners – who find themselves committing murders and quietly socking away the dead bodies, for some expedient, entirely sensible reason. In stories of this ilk, the grisly parade of horrid acts is broken only by the call of a cup of tea. Hollywood has never been able to perfect this formula – although Alfred Hitchcock was well placed to have a shot at it in his underrated The Trouble with Harry (1955). And the central idea of Hitchcock's whimsical film – that dead bodies just won't stay in their allotted place – is also at the heart of Keeping Mum. The story starts cleverly, with a disjunction between a newsworthy incident in the past – a pregnant woman who killed and dismembered her husband and his mistress – and a plot line in the present, involving the rocky marriage of Reverend Walter Goodfellow (Rowan Atkinson) and Gloria (Kristin Scott Thomas), and their brood of mildly troubled kids. Small town life, with its pesky neighbours, barking dogs and church socials, provides the ever-present backdrop for proceedings. But when the elderly Grace (Maggie Smith) arrives to help at the Goodfellow household, things begin to get more eventful. For starters, Grace twigs to Gloria's secret dalliance with her obnoxious American golf coach, Lance (Patrick Swayze). And Grace is the sort of helpful soul who likes to put things right for the good of any family. Although it takes a while to get rolling, this is a surprisingly effective and entertaining piece. It benefits from some great touches of underplayed slapstick – such as when Gloria and her slutty daughter, Holly (Tamsin Egerton), hide under Grace's bed, but are undone by a bit of business involving multiple mobile phones. Director Niall Johnson has previously tried his hand at the horror genre and kids' movies, but here he finds his niche. The best aspect of Keeping Mum is the acting. Thomas is superbly cast as the unglamorous, unsatisfied wife, and even Atkinson manages to move beyond his familiar comedic routine into pathos. Smith is, as always, a delight to watch, as good at playing physical gags as she is at delivering withering one-liners. Because the under-thirty cool crowd will probably not be rushing to Keeping Mum, there is one very curious element here that might slip under the cultural radar: a lovely musical score by Dickon Hinchliffe of Tindersticks, which mixes sad waltzes, a pastiche of "Fever" and a final-credits song duet between the composer and Cara Dillon. © Adrian Martin January 2006 |
