Bel Powley

Savage House

06/06/26

Cineworld, Edinburgh

It’s 1817 and England is beset by both a Jacobite uprising and a massive pox outbreak – and the Savages are in dire straits. Oh sure, they live in a great big mansion, replete with massive oil paintings and fancy gardens, but Sir Chauncy Savage (Richard E Grant) is an utter rake and has somehow managed to gamble away all of the land that surrounds the house. Now his creditors are closing in on him. 

All that’s left of real value are Lady Savage (Claire Foy)’s family jewels. Luckily, despite the couple’s differences – and the fact that they choose to seek sexual gratification with their servants, Dorothy (Bel Powley) and Reginald (Jack Farthing) – the Savages clearly love each other. Meanwhile, their daughter, Fanny (Kila Lord Cassiday), concentrates on tending to the family of mice living in her doll’s house and preparing for an upcoming total eclipse of the sun, which many believe will signal unprecedented changes.

Sir Chauncy, we are told by The Narrator (Robert Bathurst), is something of an imposter, the son of a humble swineherd, while Lady S is from proper aristocracy. (The idea that working-class people aren’t allowed to aspire to nice things is an unpleasant subtext that writer/director Peter Glanz seems to ram home at every opportunity, mostly via the image of a huge pig wandering around the rooms of the Savage’s house.)

Things are beginning to look desperate. Then out of the blue, word arrives that the celebrated Duke and Duchess of Devonshire have requested permission to dine and sleep at Savage House in ten days time. Chauncy spots an all-important opportunity to improve his social standing and persuades his wife that they must not miss out. The aforementioned jewels are sold and Dorothy and Reginald are put to work sprucing the place up – though we soon discover that they have devious plans of their own…

Savage House is something of a mixed bag. Both Grant and Foy are wonderful in their roles, with Grant in particular revelling in the unhinged nature of Chauncy, who invites disaster at every turn. A scene where he performs a drunken dance despite suffering agonising gout is a high point – as is a duelling sequence where Adriano Goldman’s cinematography briefly evokes the grandeur of Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon. There’s also a wonderful orchestral score of classical compositions, though this too reminds me of an earlier (and better) film – Peter Greenaway’s The Draughtsman’s Contract. 

The film also seems obsessed with focusing on the most unpleasant aspects of life in the 1800s. It never misses the opportunity to focus on piles of steaming excrement, streams of rancid pus, wriggling leeches and acts of lewd sex. A scene where a gangrenous limb is sawn off is shown in such unflinching detail that I almost feel the need to cover my eyes. Those who are squeamish about vermin may find themselves in similar straits at regular intervals. (Susan, I’m looking at you!)

As one disaster after another assails Chauncy’s boundless ambitions, and his unfettered hubris leads him inexorably to a tragic conclusion, I find myself hoping for a single ray of sunshine to pierce the unremitting gloom. But sadly, that isn’t allowed to happen – and the bleak ending feels disappointingly flat as a consequence. 

We leave the cinema discussing potential ways that such illumination might have been achieved, but the film is already in the cinemas where it is sure to divide audiences. Though it occasionally hits the heights, one thing’s for certain. Savage House isn’t short of ambition.

3.4 stars

Philip Caveney

Mary Shelley

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09/07/18

It’s one of the most fascinating stories in the history of literature – how an eighteen year old girl, albeit the daughter of two respected writers and the partner of an acclaimed poet, managed to create one of the most seminal novels of all time – a book that has never been out of print since its release in 1818, one that has been filmed and staged countless times… and a book, moreover, that is a brilliant metaphor for womankind’s lot in the male-dominated society of the period.

Here, Mary is played by Elle Fanning, doing that sleepy-eyed, sulky thing she does so perfectly, while the role of Percy Bysshe Shelley is played by Douglas Booth. Indeed, at times, it’s hard to decide which one of them is the most photogenic. When we first encounter Mary, she’s sixteen years old, living with her father, the bookseller William Godwin (Stephen Dillane), her argumentative stepmother, Mary Jane Clairmont (Joanne Froggat), and her stepsister, Claire (Bel Powley). Mary is obsessed with reading Gothic horror stories and is already making her first tentative attempts at writing fiction but, as her father tells her, she needs to stop imitating others and ‘find her own voice.’

On a rare visit to one of her cousins in Scotland, she encounters the handsome Percy Shelley and there’s an instant attraction between them. Summoned back to London because of Claire’s fictional ‘illness’, Mary is astonished when Percy turns up at her father’s bookshop, having enlisted William as his patron. It’s only a matter of time before Mary and Percy are in the throes of a full-blown romance. It’s not all plain sailing though. For one thing, there’s the fact that Percy already has a wife and daughter, a little detail that he has completely neglected to mention. But Mary manages to put her doubts aside. She’s smitten.

And then, to the complete disgust of polite society, the two lovers decide to run away together, taking Claire along for the ride. The three of them live a dissolute existence, struggling to make money and frittering away whatever they earn on alcohol and extravagant parties. Percy believes in free love and it isn’t long before, much to Mary’s dismay,  he’s drawing Claire into his amorous clutches. Then, the trio find themselves invited by Lord Byron (Tom Sturridge) to stay at his villa in Switzerland, where he and his personal physician, Dr John Polidori (Ben Hardy), are currently holidaying – and where all the elements are in place for the creation of a Gothic masterpiece.

Haifaa al Monsour’s film sticks fairly closely to the facts and, despite the odd contemporary-sounding phrase, Emma Jensen’s screenplay easily manages to hold the attention. If Shelley comes across as a privileged idiot, he’s totally eclipsed by Byron, who, as portrayed by Sturridge, is easily the most slappable person in nineteenth century Europe, prone to making vile utterances about the superiority of men and engaging in macho posturing. Indeed, amongst the young male characters, only Polidori emerges as genuinely decent, though the treatment he experiences at the hands of the two poets might give him good cause to be surly.

This is a good movie, handsomely staged and capably directed. It may be the first time that the extraordinary nature of Mary’s achievement has been fully realised onscreen. If the film is a little short on fireworks, it’s nonetheless offers a fascinating insight into the scandalous events that surrounded the creation of Frankenstein.

4 stars

Philip Caveney