GATECRASH
Directed by: Laurence Gough
Starring: Olivia Bonamy, Ben Cura, Anton Lesser, Samuel West
Nicole and Steve return home from a party on edge. They've been involved in a hit and run incident and are bickering about whether they should now go to the police and explain what happened or to keep quiet. When their landline Is called by Steve's mobile phone, they realise to their horror that Steve must have lost his phone at the site of the accident…and then there is a knock at the door…
Gatecrash can't quite hide the fact that it is based on a play (Life's a Gatecrash by Terry Hughes). It has a very small cast (four characters) and is mostly set in one location. This matters not, however, because the film is completely riveting.
It is very clear ight from the off that Nicole and Steve's marriage is on the rocks. There is no warmth to be found in their home - it looks very sterile and minimalist with no real personal touches to the décor. Having said that it is a gorgeous place and you will feel a pang of envy as the camera tours its many corridors and rooms following Olivia.
Steve is a bastard. An abusive bastard who can't stop from laying a hand on Nicole. He even manages to blame her for the accident, stating that if he hadn't been yelling at her he would have been looking where he was going! Unfortunately Nicole is so emotionally beaten by this point in their relationship that she agrees and apologises. She’s later accused of having “poor taste in men” but that seems to be victim blaming.
This moment of domestic abuse is brought to an end by their landline phone ringing. It’s the middle of the night - who could be calling? When they check the caller ID it turns out to be Steve's mobile number - he must have dropped his phone at the site of the accident and someone has found it…
Then a policeman arrives. Steve disappears into the house and leaves Nicole to deal with him. As the policeman starts asking very obtuse questions you start to realise that there is some playful malevolence going on here. Even more so when Nicole invites him in…
It is fair to say that this film doesn't head in any direction you might be expecting (unless you've seen the play, of course). The pair are faced with someone who witnessed their crime and decided to mess with them, forcing them to deal with the situation. Then the film jumps ahead a year.
Now Nicole and Steve have a baby, and the pair have another visitor. At first he is very kind and jovial but his persistent questioning gets under their skin. He's picking apart their version of events, peeling off scabbed over memories and it hurts.
The acting is great by all the principles. Olivia Bonamy has to do a lot of the work as Nicole, barely holding it together under the various interrogations and dealing with her no good husband. Samuel West gets the more playful role of the policeman. Anton Lesser plays Sid, someone who doesn't seem like a threat at all, at first, but his vulnerability might be a façade.
The only real issue I have with Gatecrash is its length, and that the scenes with Sid are quite long and the conversation seems to be just going round in circles and getting nowhere fast. But eventually this does shift gears and give a very tense finish.
THE VERDICT
Unsurprisingly, given its origins, Gatecrash is a very wordy film with lots of dialogue between the characters rather than action. That doesn't mean the film isn't entertaining, intense, exciting because it certainly ticks those boxes.