‘Theatrical Coup’: Cludo’s Slacker Part in Fifties and Bohemian London

The opinion of the “world” – why not

London, 1950. Stoppard (Sam Rockwell), a disillusioned inspector, is forced to take under his wing Agent Stalker (Saoirse Ronan), an earnest young intern. A predictably ill-adjusted duo must solve a case: In London’s West End theater district, famous Hollywood director Leo Copernicus (Adrien Brody) has been murdered while preparing a film adaptation of a hit crime comedy. The investigation is an opportunity to immerse yourself in fifties and bohemian London, which seems to only swear by Agatha Christie and Earl Gray tea bags.

A spectacular turn of eventsIt’s an old jam jar whodunit (“Who did it?”) served with postmodern sauce: every night there is a criminal on stage, another behind the scenes. The film breaks the fourth wall, connecting, in a nauseating rhythm, mise en abyme, the audience and other “meta” gadgets that Tom George, its director, seems to have mixed with virtuosity.

Far from regenerating the genre, he tries to spruce up this installment of Cluedo, which, with its frozen academicism and burdened by the British histrionics of the cast – and Saoirse Ronan’s youthful freshness can’t do anything about it – is becoming sluggish.