“Sweeney Todd With mummification” is the high concept behind it stuffeda musical black comedy that ambitiously attempts to make a serious point about modern-day loneliness, and thanks to a terrific main cast, largely succeeds. Not everything works, particularly the rarefied nature of the music, which at times sounds like the strange literal music of Rufus Norris. London Road (2015). However, this is an adaptation of a fairly famous play, and it’s entirely possible that Theo Rhys’s first film could go the other way, being the perfect basis for an intimate and unusual Off-Broadway show.
The centerpiece of this strange British calling card is Bernie Marshall, played by Harry Melling. Meling was last seen in a BDSM romance last year one billion Dominated by Alexander Skarsgard’s alpha biker ray. Meiling’s superpower is strange. His face always seems to have the expression of someone about to fall 500 feet without a seatbelt on a Six Flags roller coaster, and this ability to project existential dread is a key trait of stuffed.
When we meet him, Bernie is working in a factory that makes egg and cheese sandwiches. No one there seems to know his name, even after years of service, and when he bakes a cake for his birthday, she is not harassed in the staff room. The worst is to come. While visiting his elderly mother in a nursing home—whose residents have burst into the first of many songs about being remembered or forgotten—Bernie is disturbed to discover that the old woman’s dementia has worsened, and she no longer remembers him. Does anyone else know it exists? It doesn’t help that his favorite TV show is — Everyday stories, extraordinary lives – It is a reality program that celebrates distinguished heroes.
But Bernie never tried, which is why his eyes wander to an ad in the local newspaper (one of Bernie’s hobbies, aside from keeping his toenail clippings in a jar, is cutting obituaries). “Omitted?” He wonders. “You can be exceptional.” It caught Bernie at a particularly low point (“My gravestone, what will it say? / Here no one lies.” He sings sadly.) The ad gets a lot of attention, but it soon becomes clear that it’s simply Bernie So Modest, and its suitability is off scale.
And that’s how Bernie comes to meet Araminta at the funeral parlor (Jodie Comer channels her inner Helena Bonham Carter as a gothic, aloof cat lady). Araminta lays down her pathological nature from the beginning, noting that “the only thing fixed is death,” and, more disturbingly, asking Bernie if he has any family. “No,” he says, which isn’t technically true, but it might be. She offers Bernie a stuffed duck. “You can be like him,” she says. “Live forever.” Frightened, Bernie runs away and vomits.
It turns out that Araminta, unlike Bernie, has a lot of friends. Like Snow White, she is surrounded by woodland creatures – rabbits, badgers and even deer – all frozen in time. Araminta is a taxidermist with plans for something bigger, and somehow her horrific plan to fill Bernie with formaldehyde arrives. While planning his fake death, the first step along the way, Bernie sings about being immortal in a song darkly reminiscent of Greatest Showman. He likes the promise of posthumous fame (“Why does death mean you have to cease to exist?”), and Araminta easily manages to convince him that she is not a murderer (“Everything here was already dead,” she shrugs).
Will Bernie keep it up? He can Araminta Go ahead? There’s a lot riding on that tension, because there’s no one else in the film, even with a surprisingly large cast of extras. Nearly two hours is a bit long for what is essentially two actions, but everyone involved is on the same page – which means the film makes a very bold decision to follow this dark story of codependency to its natural conclusion.
1971 Hal Ashby comedy Harold and Maudwith its soundtrack by Cat Steves, is the closest comparison you’ll find in this very niche genre, and like that film, there’s an undercurrent that overcomes the escalating sense of WTF as Araminta gets closer to realizing her ambition. Despite the increasing violence Big doll On display, there’s actually a lot of nuance here, in its discussion of not just loneliness but the transactional nature of modern relationships. Are they really falling in love or are they just a perfect match? After all, Bernie has a good heart, and Araminta simply wants to pick him up.
address: stuffed
festival: toronto (discovery)
exit: Theo Reese
Screenwriters: Theo Rees, Gus Holden-Rhea
ejaculate: Jodie Comer, Harry Melling
Sales agent: Cornerstone Films
Operating time: 1 hour and 57 minutes
