Director: Matt Winn
Writers: James Handel, Matt Winn
Stars: Alan Tudyk, Shirley Henderson, Rufus Sewell
Synopsis: Sarah and Tom are in deep financial trouble. Their situation takes a terrifying nosedive with the shocking behavior of their uninvited dinner guest, Jessica.
The title of Matt Winn’s black comedy of manners, The Trouble with Jessica, immediately brings to mind Alfred Hitchcock’s classic comedy The Trouble with Harry but other than a somewhat inconvenient dead body compelling the plot, there is no comparing the skill of good old Hitch with Winn’s underdeveloped and predominantly under-acted farce. The audience might find themselves wishing to be in Jessica’s (Indira Varma) position – oblivious to what is happening around her.
Sarah (Shirley Henderson) and Tom (a muted Alan Tudyk) are having a special dinner party with their closest friends, Beth (Olivia Williams) and Richard (Rufus Sewell). Tom gets a call that Beth and Richard will be bringing Jessica. They all knew each other at university and Sarah is particularly bitter that Jessica has invited herself along. Jessica has just published a successful book and Sarah fears, or rather, knows that somehow, in true Jessica fashion, she will ensure the evening is all about her.
Sarah and Tom’s beautiful North London home is due to be sold to cover debts incurred by Tom trying to finance his dream architecture project. Sarah hoped that the last dinner in their house will be a celebration. Instead, it becomes a night that will strip away all the middle-class politeness that existed between the group of friends: as Jessica says, “Stop the bullshit.”
Jessica has some acidic things to say about her friends. She calls Sarah an “adult fuck up,” criminal defense lawyer Richard a “charming amoralist,” his wife Beth who works in domestic violence support is “a po-faced do-gooder,” and Tom a “pathological dreamer.” Dinner heats up as Sarah and Jessica face off. Sarah resents Jessica’s narcissism and constant flirtations with Tom. Sarah reveals that Tom’s dream project has bankrupt them and the only way they can survive is to sell the house immediately. With two teen children to support, she snipes that Jessica has no idea what it’s like to have real problems that can’t be exorcised by a memoir of travel adventures and illicit love affairs.
Whatever Sarah may think, Jessica has enough problems that she takes herself out to their garden and hangs herself. An act that leaves the group astonished and confused. It’s also an act that puts the essential sale of Tom and Sarah’s house in jeopardy. Sarah convinces Tom that calling 999 will lead to their ruin. They now need to convince Beth and Richard pretend Jessica’s suicide didn’t occur in their home, but rather at her own, and Sarah isn’t above blackmail to do so. A visit from the police due to the disconnected 999 call places everyone as an accessory to failure to report a death. From there, the cracks in the relationships between them all come to the surface in a pseudo-comedic “move the body” gambit.
Matt Winn and James Handel’s script had the potential to be a wicked farce, especially when it appears that night is when everyone wants to knock on Sarah and Tom’s door. From their elderly neighbor, Miranda, who wants to meet and congratulate Jessica (now deceased) on her book, to the buyer of the house; a German oil lobbyist named Klaus (Sylvester Groth). The problem is that only Rufus Sewell seem to have understood the tone of the work, meaning he stands out as apparently overacting because everyone else is underplaying their characters. There’s no great statement being made by The Trouble with Jessica – the fact that middle-aged couples grow tired of each other, and long-term friendships collect grievances over the years is hardly a revelation. Thus, the satire is almost non-existent, and the farcical elements get tiring quite quickly. A late attempt to add honest emotional weight to the film fails.
Of unfortunate note is the music composed by Matt Winn and Matt Cooper. It tries desperately to tell the audience that a scene is funny, chaotic, or serious in such an overbearing manner that the rest of the film is competing with it. Not that there is much competition offered with the all too obvious twists and the one running joke being a clafoutis made by Richard. When a cherry pudding is the gag the film keeps returning to, bland fare is the menu.
Other than Sewell trying to keep the energy and engine of the movie running, there’s very little else to recommend it. Shirley Henderson and Alan Tudyk are both accomplished comic actors, but they do extremely little to make anyone invested in their fate. Tudyk is particularly floundering as Tom whose main personality trait is “no personality.” Olivia Williams comes out of the film with her dignity intact, but Beth isn’t her finest characterization. Indira Varma manages to play movable corpse just fine – but as a living character, Jessica’s main trait seems to be “a bit of a bitch.”
The Trouble with Jessica not only misses its farcical marks, but it is also irritating when it’s trying to be funny and uninteresting when it’s not. Middle class hypocrisy is rote in British cinema and Winn’s work doesn’t manage to mine anything of consequence. I’d like to write something witty about The Trouble with Jessica but I don’t want to rub further salt in Matt Winn’s wounds by proving critics can be funnier than he is. The Trouble with Jessica isn’t pithy, it isn’t surprising, and it isn’t worth coming to the table for.
