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Kelly MacDonald as Kate in The Merry Gentlemen. Below, Michael Keaton |
Gentle reminder of pasts
THE MERRY GENTLEMEN
Directed by Michael Keaton
Certificate 15
THIS film, directed and starring Michael Keaton, considers the long-lasting effects physical oppression has on the psyche.
We meet Kate (Kelly MacDonald), a woman who has a habit of avoiding your gaze and brushing her hair so as to cover half her face.
We soon discover Kate has run away from a violent and abusive marriage: she hopes to find a new life – and, more pressingly, anonymity – in Chicago. The references to her black eye in her first week in her new job are uncomfortable – especially when her explanation to one colleague does not tally with a later story she tells – and the physical pain is obviously swamped by an unhappy memory.
But it is Christmas, and in a vague attempt to cheer herself up in her new, small and rather dingy flat, she decides to buy a Christmas tree. As she is struggling to get it in through her front door, she bumps into stranger Frank (Keaton), and the pair begin to find a form of solace in their shared silences and willingness not to ask questions about their backgrounds.
Frank (as we discover long before Kate) has a troubled past and a secret life that is driving him slowly to suicide. And without knowing it, Kate has come across Frank before, when she spotted a lonely figure on a roof of a block of flats, preparing to kill himself. Why? Frank’s secret – which we know from the outset – is so terrible that you cringe for our heroine each time they come into contact with one another. But by understating his background, and without offering spectacular explanations for his extra-curricular night work, Keaton creates a grey area for the viewer in terms of your feelings for Frank as he develops an understanding with his quiet new friend.
Their relationship becomes an interest for troubled cop Murcheson, investigating a murder in the block opposite. He is another lonely figure who relies on his partner Goldman for friendship, and finds Kate, with her Scottish accent and vulnerability, attractive.
The main trick Keaton has pulled off here is crediting his audience with some intelligence. There are gaps in the story for you to fill in yourself, including a couple of characters who flit in and out with little background offered. It will leave you with a sense of curiosity by the time the credits role.
And Keaton’s careful consideration of the long-term effects abusive relationships have on those involved, a subject rarely tackled to any degree in cinema, is intelligent. Kate’s reaction to men in general after her terrible experience in her marriage is well observed. It makes this a Christmas film like no other.
MacDonald (who you may recall was the schoolgirl in Trainspotting, and also turned up in Gosford Park) is pretty champ: she is meek and quiet and thoroughly oppressed. You quickly find yourself rooting for her. Murcheson is superbly played by Tom Bastounes – again, the downbeat nature of his tentative play for Kate is at times painful to watch but completely believable. |
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