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Midnight Movie
UK 1994
produced by
Dennis Potter, Rosemarie Whitman, Ruth Caleb (executive), Mark Shivas (executive) for BBC, Whistling Gypsy Production
directed by Renny Rye
starring Jim Carter, Louise Germaine, Brian Dennehy, Colin Salmon, Steven Mackintosh, Anna Cropper, David Curtiz, Lucinda Galloway (= Lucinda Clare), Gerard Horan, Anthony Pedley, Michael Gardiner, Michael Poole, Robert Putt, Georgine Anderson, John Cater, Melanie Ramsay, Stephen Greif, Geoffrey Larder, Mark Frost, Kelly Moorhouse, Joshua O'Brien, Pietra Pittman, Amelia Whiston-Dew
screenplay by Dennis Potter, based on the novel Moths by Rosalind Ashe, music by Christopher Gunning
review by
Mike Haberfelner
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Attorney Henry (Jim Carter) attends a dinner party of one of his
clients, American movie producer Boyce and his British wife Amber (Louise
Germaine), and admits he has been infatuated with Amber's mother, actress
Mandy (also Louise Germeine), who has died in a carcrash about 30 years
ago, a carcrash that might have revealed she was a nymphomaniac. Even the
mention of her mother puts Amber in great distress, while her husband
suggests they watch an old movie of Mandy's together ... Amber soon
turns out to be just the nymphomaniac her mother was supposed to be, but
she also has the habit of killing her lovers afterwards - even though she
never leaves enough evidence for the police to pin anything on her. And
she seems to forget both the sex and the murder afterwards, but suffers
heavy migrane attacks as a direct after-effect. Also, it's suggested that
she's possessed by her mother at times. Henry becomes as infatuated with
Amber as he was with her mother, and when he pays a visit to her house,
she is quick to seduce him - but as he drives off, he has a near-fatal car
accident, as his brakes have been tampered with. But though Henry's quick to
put two and two together and come up with Amber as the culprit, he can't
stop loving her, and after a night of torment, he writes her a loveletter
he has his assistant Bertie (Steven Mackintosh) deliver to her place. Once
there of course, Bertie is quickly seduced by Amber, after which she
chases him through the house with a meat cleaver. Meanwhile it dawns upon Henry that
he has just sent his assistant to his death, and he rushes to his rescue
when ... ... we're back at the point in the story when Henry and Boyce
are watching the movie starring Amber's mother Mandy, a cheesy and
formulaic crime drama - everything else apparently was just in Henry's fantasy. When leaving
for home though, Henry has a fatal car accident, caused of all people by
Amber's dead mother. Henry's ghost appears to Boyce though and accuses him
of killing Mandy, then he meets up with Amber - who might also be a ghost,
as she was seen earlier taking a few too many pills - and the two embrace
and kiss as if they were lovers ... but maybe that's just part of another
fantasy. There are some points of interest in this film about a
man in midlife crisis resorting into fantasy that resembles more a
sex-and-crime movie than real life, including a game with genre mainstays
and a pretty clever buildup of
events ... however as a whole, the film is less than satisfying, as the
resolution of the on-screen goings-on is left a bit too open, and while
that might have been intended by screenwriter Dennis Potter, it might also
suggest a certain laziness on his part to bring a story, formulaic as it
is, to a proper ending, especially since it ends at such a deliberate
point in the narrative and throws us back to another rather deliberate
point. A rather uninspired directorial effort, a cast that's hardly above
average and some below-average dialogue don't help much either in making
this film something out of the ordinary, but I guess as a piece of
slightly shallow genre entertainment the film is ok - though I'm sure that's
exactly what acclaimed dramatist and screenwriter Dennis Potter, whose
last film before his death this was, did not intend it to be.
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