THE HIPPOPOTAMUS
Sexual practice among the upper classes is explored in this comedy drama.
It’s a mildly successful hybrid of film noir detective story and the novels of Evelyn Waugh.
It’s based on a book by Stephen Fry, and his over-bearing smug pomposity weighs down every line of dialogue.
Roger Allam plays a failed poet who wallows in the caustic mud of his own cynicism.
His voice-over is full of cruel asides and flowery language, which delights in its public schoolboy humour and obsesses over bodily fluids and functions.
The whiskey-sodden writer is employed by a glamorous blonde to investigate a miraculous healing which took place at a large country house.
Fry previously directed a big-screen adaptation of Waugh’s Vile Bodies, called Bright Young Things. And there, as here, he fails to make us care about his herd of posh idiots.
However, the jolly jazz era soundtrack helps make it surprisingly brisk on its feet.
Also stars Matthew Modine, Tim McInnerny and Fiona Shaw.