Shallow Grave
It is so hard to find good flatmates, isn’t it? You either get the borderline OCD clean freak or the absolutely filthy one. There’s the party animal and then there is the ghost. You get the overly loud sexual one or the prude. But if you are one of the lucky ones, you will be living with your best friends and it will be you against the rest of the world.
What happens then, if a new housemate comes in and disrupts that harmony? What happens when a pile of money falls into your laps, causing your friendship to strain?
This is exact what happens in Danny Boyle’s directorial debut, Shallow Grave. Starring Ewan McGregor, Christopher Ecclestone and Kerry Fox, Shallow Grave is about a trio of housemates, Alex, David and Juliet, who are looking for a new housemate. When their latest find turns up dead from an overdose, they discover him lifeless alongside a suitcase of cash. Instead of doing to right thing, turn the body and the cash in, they decide to keep the cash and dispose of the body in a very gruesome manner. But, despite the new influx of money, a grim future awaits as death, murder and suspicion tears them apart.
John Hodge, who wrote screenplay for Trainspotting, writes a delightful movie here. Balanced with Boyle’s talent, Shallow Grave is a gripping movie from the beginning to end. Starting off as most black comedies do, Shallow Grave boasts grim and disgusting moments with a wicked and nearly British sense of humour. As the body in the room and decisions need to be made, the humour punctuates the horror and leads us along. But what it leads us along to is a tense thriller. Hodge masters the genre well, causing the middle to feel unnerving as our friends our pulled apart by suspicions. There is genuine fear here and it is developed in the characters. Nervy David recluses himself to the loft to spy, Juliet becomes a master manipulator pitting the men against each other and Alex, once jokey and spirited, soon dwells on the impending doom.
What is great about Shallow Grave is not just the events happening in the flat, but it is the life outside the trio that juxtaposes their almost claustrophobic relationship. Boyle and Hodge combine snippets of the bright world outside to the bleak ones inside, building the pressure around the money. As the movie closes in on the end, so those they feel, almost suffocating us with distrust. The final twist of wit in Shallow Grave reminds us of the almost jovial beginning and brings a round circle to the movie. It is sublimely written and executed.
Boyle showcases his talents here, with fast shots in heart pounding action and combining art and atmosphere with the death scenes, to build the suspense. Directing relatively unknown actors into perfect models of their characters, Shallow Grave is a testament of Boyles genius. Shallow Grave premeditates his body of work, the ability to convey atmosphere through design and camera work. Unfortunately now, it is buried underneath the Slumdogs and the Frankensteins.
But it is a shallow grave that needs a little digging to be unearthed.
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