Directed by Graham Moore
Written by Graham Moore and Jonathan McClain
2022
Netflix
CAST
Mark Rylance – Leonard (aka ‘English’) a cutter (tailor)
Zony Deutch – Mable, Leonard’s receptionist
Simon Russell- Beale- Roy Boyle, gangland boss
Johnny Flynn – Francis, member of Roy’s gang, Mable’s boyfriend
Dylan O’Brien – Richie Boyle, Roy’s son
Niki Amuka-Bird – La Fontaine
Chiedu Agborth- La Fontaine’s bodyguard
Michael Addo -La Fontaine’s bodyguard
Alan Mehidizadeh – Roy’s bodyguard
There is a full synopsis on IMDB, There are no plot spoilers here. This is a very brief comment.
We were flicking through Netflix and stopped, ‘That’s Mark Rylance! And that’s Simon Russell-Beale! What? And Johnny Flynn!’ Three of Britain’s finest actors, all together. Mark Rylance and Johnny Flynn memorably worked together in The Globe’s 2012 productions of Twelfth Night and Richard III. We’ve seen all three on stage more than once. We’ve been eighteen inches from Mark Rylance at The Wanamaker Playhouse. Apart from The Motive & The Cue last year, we sawJohnny Flynn & The Sussex Wit playing in Hyde Park. Earlier this year, we found ourselves next to Simon Russell-Beale in the café at The Globe. So we started it.
Our first thought, this is a filmed stage play. Who’s it by? How come we haven’t heard of it?
There’s a shop with two connected rooms, and a patently studio built exterior with fake snow. The snow is important to the story. We never leave the room. There are lots of close ups. There are extras, but the main cast is five. It must be a play … but not so. It was written and directed by Graham Moore, who wrote The Imitation Game.
It is set in his home town, Chicago, in 1956. It was filmed in a studio in Wembley, London. The gangsters have American accents, Leonard is English. La Fontaine has a French accent.
It’s a thriller, all the more dramatic for taking place in a confined area. The poster conjures up Hitchcock posters, and Hitchcock was also fond of confined areas. The filming is dark, on the dark side of film noire but in muted colour.
Leonard is an English cutter (NOT tailor – tailors sew buttons and hems) who moved to Chicago, and his first bespoke customer was Roy Boyle. Leonard is a meticulous man. Leonard allows his premises to be used as a drop box by the gang. Richie is dating Mable.
Francis, not being the boss’s son, is jealous of Richie’s position as numero uno. Richie is shot in the stomach by rival gang, the La Fontaines, and taken to Leonard’s place. Leonard has to stitch him up. The gang have a ‘rat’ supplying information to the FBI and there is a tape of conversations. It’s an odd tape, open reel in a holder case like an outsize transparent cassette. I remember something like that in language laboratories in the early 1970s (soon replaced with compact cassettes). I didn’t know they had such a tape in 1956. It all spins on from there. They all need the tape.
Roy (Simon Russell-Beale) turns up with heavy bodyguard seeking his son. Leonard’s past in England is more “interesting” than we had imagined. I’ll leave it there.
The performances are as one would expect, first rate. Rylance in close up dominates, but he tends to in watchability.
You could do it on stage. The large quantities of blood swashing around would be a problem, but you could have less. The images of fire in Leonard’s memory and at the end are harder, but video projection is very good nowadays.
LINKS ON THIS BLOG
MARK RYLANCE
Dr Semmelweis by Stephen Brown with Mark Rylance, London 2023
Nice Fish by Mark Rylance and Louis Jenkins
Farinelli & The King, by Claire Van Kampen, Wanamaker Playhouse, 2015
Richard III – Apollo 2012 Mark Rylance as Richard III
Twelfth Night – Apollo 2012 Mark Rylance as Olivia
Jerusalem by Jez Butterworth, West End
La Bête by David Hirson, West End, 2010
+ film and TV
Wolf Hall, TV Series (as Thomas Cromwell)
Bridge of Spies, directed by Steven Speilberg
Dunkirk, directed by Christopher Nolan
Don’t Look Up, directed by Adam McKay
Phantom of The Open
+ director
Much Ado About Nothing (Old Vic)
JOHNNY FLYNN
The Motive & The Cue, National Theatre 2023
Johnny Flynn & The Sussex Wit, Hyde Park 2018 (MUSIC)
True West by Sam Shepard, 2018
Hangmen, by Martin McDonagh, Royal Court, London 2015
Twelfth Night, Globe / Apollo 2012 (Viola)
Richard III Globe, Apollo 2012 (Lady Anne / Lord Grey)
Jerusalem by Jez Butterworth, 2011
The Dig (FILM)
SIMON RUSSELL-BEALE
John Gabriel Borkmann, by Ibsen, Bridge Theatre 2022
The Tempest, RSC 2016 (Prospero)
King Lear, National Theatre, 2014 (Lear)
The Hot House, by Harold Pinter, Trafalgar Studios, 2013
Privates on Parade, by Peter Nichols, Michael Grandage Season, 2012
Timon of Athens, National Theatre, 2012 (Timon)
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