LONDON ROAD
(a film review by Mark R. Leeper)

CAPSULE: A musical with unusual subject matter was
commissioned by the British National Theatre and then
adapted by almost the same cast and crew into this
movie version. The residents of London Road in
Ipswich, England, are gripped by fear and paranoia after
five naked corpses of prostitutes have been found on
their little road. All of the action takes place
off-screen except for the reactions of the people only
involved because it happened on their street. The dialog
is taken from interviews in the three years after the
murder and the neighborhood buries their horror by all
getting involved in a neighborhood-wide hobby. The first
third of the film lives up to the promise of the concept,
but what follows is a very English reaction on the road
and it will likely not enthrall US audiences. Rating:
low +1 (-4 to +4) or 5/10

A quiet, unexceptional road in Ipswich is rocked by the finding of
the bodies of five prostitutes who had been brutally murdered. The
retelling of the events of the true crime and the reaction on the
road was adapted into a very successful stage play with a twist.
The locals' actual accounts of the incident were adapted to musical
form. That musical had two sell-out runs at the British National
Theatre. The musical play was nominated for four Laurence Olivier
Awards and has now been adapted by its stage director Rufus Norris
into a film. As on the stage, Alecky Blythe provided book and
lyrics and Adam Cork contributed music and lyrics. It fact most of
the actors and crew are directly taken from the successful stage
play.

The idea of taking a startling crime and turning it into a stage
musical brings back memories of "Sweeney Todd." Sadly, unlike that
play this film carefully avoids all the possible thrills in their
telling. The subject matter is not the crime itself, but the
reaction of the residents of London Road. In fact, we are never
even told how the criminal was caught. The perpetrator is caught
about a third the way into the film and most of the rest of the
story is how the street residents decide to give their road a good
name by cleaning the local yards up and having everyone competing
to have the most beautiful flower-filled garden. The film
culminates in the road's flower festival where awards are given for
the nicest gardens. To an American it seems a very British
reaction to seek solace in making their gardens grow. American
audiences would and the other extreme and would want at least two
car chases and a look at the victims' bodies. The music of this
musical in large part is injected by having characters speak in
singsong voices. There is no melody anybody in the audience is
going to want to be humming.

The American viewer longs for the early moments of the film when
people were saying anybody could be the killer and "everybody's
very, very nervous," and the story might have gone into s Rod-
Serling-ish "The Monsters Are Due on London Road." There are not
many light moments unless they are just looking at some of the
stranger personalities. There is a moment or two of levity
watching a newscaster who is not allowed to say the word "sperm"
and cannot think of an alternative.

Cinematographer Danny Cohen has some nice photo studies of paranoid
faces. His photography early in the film seems to have the feel of
a perpetually overcast sky that clears up in time for the end of
the film and the flower festival.

Perhaps to add a little marquee value the film has one fairly
recognizable actor, Tom Hardy. He has only a small part but he is
a flavor of the month after making films like MAD MAX: FURY ROAD,
THE DROP, LOCKE, LEGEND, and THE DARK KNIGHT RISES.

The biggest problem with the film is that so soon in the film it
loses all of its tension and goes flaccid. After that the only
thing people are nervous about is getting up on the stage at the
flower festival. Viewers looking for suspense and excitement will
be disappointed. I rate LONDON ROAD a low +1 on the -4 to +4 scale
or 5/10. LONDON ROAD went into a limited American release on
September 7, 2016.

Film Credits:
<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3573598/combined>

What others are saying:
<https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/london_road>


Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 2016 Mark R. Leeper

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