It’s never a good sign when two film critics leave a preview screening thirty minutes in to a film. It’s worse still when the remaining audience laugh at all the attempts at gravitas or terror and yawn their way through moments of supposed tenderness.
But when the film they are watching is as slow, repetitive and, dare I say it, boring as Cuckoo, it’s actually a mark of professionalism and politeness that they didn’t just dig their way out like Steve McQueen and drive for the nearest national border.
Cuckoo, it must be said, isn’t as good as it could be. In fact, it’s really not very good at all. The film was inspired by writer and director Richard Bracewell’s experience of living with his pregnant partner in a crowded South London block of flats. As the pregnancy advanced, his partner became sensitive not to taste or smell, but to sound. Which makes for an interesting conversation over a cup of tea, but doesn’t, sadly, have quite enough depth for an entire feature film.
Cuckoo is basically the story of a young woman Polly (played by Laura Fraser) who suffers a sort of paranoid nervous breakdown, haunted by inexplicable sounds in her flat and periods of memory loss and disorientation. Her boss, professor Julius (played by Richard E Grant) is in love with her and her sister Jimi may well be having an affair with her boyfriend. I say may, because between the grindingly clunky script, bad performances and general sense of mystery, it’s hard to know what is actually going on. Or to care.
Nell Frizzell
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