A suspenseful Jack the Ripper-like tale with a glorious feminist twist
The Limehouse Golem 15 cert, 112 min Dir Juan Carlos Medina
Starring Bill Nighy, Olivia Cooke, Douglas Booth, Daniel Mays, Eddie Marsan
On the surface, The Limehouse Golem is a Victorian whodunit, a pulpy, suspenseful Jack the Ripper-like tale. But peer through the thick London fog and you’ll find a feminist film lurking. Adapted by Jane Goldman (Kick-ass) from Peter Ackroyd’s 1994 novel, this is about women avenging male brutality, keeping their own grisly secrets, and dismissing the men who think women need saving.
In the role of Scotland Yard Inspector John Kildare, Bill Nighy gets top billing (having replaced the late Alan Rickman). But it’s young British actress Olivia Cooke who does the heavy lifting. As the cherubic-looking “Little Lizzie”, a music hall performer from very humble origins, she’s the film’s vital organs – a deft mix of cunning, pizzazz, virtue and poise.
As the film begins, Lizzie stands accused of poisoning her hottempered playwright husband John Cree (Sam Reid). At the same time, Kildare – whose career has been blighted by rumours that he’s “not the marrying kind” – is called upon to investigate a spate of nasty murders in the East End neighbourhood of Limehouse.
Since the case is thought to be unsolvable, Kildare is well aware that he’s being set up to fail. Not that this deters him. With the help of plucky Constable George Flood (Daniel Mays), he soon discovers a link between the two cases. Emerging as the chief suspect in the Limehouse murders – on a list that includes political theorist Karl Marx (Henry Goodman) and English novelist George Gissing (Morgan Watkins) – is one John Cree. If he can prove it was him, then not only will Kildare get the kudos his intellect deserves, but he’ll also rescue Lizzie from the gallows.
Much of Juan Carlos Medina’s first English-language feature (following his 2012 debut Painless) is told via flashback, with Lizzie reminiscing from her prison cell to Kildare about how she went from abject poverty to stagehand to the toast of London, with the help of Douglas Booth’s celebrated, real-life singer/drag artist Dan Leno. As Kildare gains her trust, we learn how she was molested as a child and how a besotted Cree pursued her. “You don’t need saving,” Kildare tells Lizzie. “Not by me. Not by any man.”
The Limehouse Golem would have been well-suited to a miniseries format – unfurled on Sunday nights, minus the beheadings – so packed with drama and exposition is Goldman’s script.
Indeed, the film rattles along at such a pace that most of the characters, including Eddie Marsan’s bald stage manager, have to be painted in broad brush strokes. Add to that one too many rug-pulling contrivances and it’s surprising that this adaptation still manages to be a very adept take on Ackroyd’s literary thriller.
Its pleasures are manifold. For a start, there’s Medina’s atmospheric direction – all cold, murky hues, claustrophobic settings and chopping edits – which keeps us in the dark until the excellent big reveal.
Then there are the performances. Nighy, dialling down the eccentric tics, stutters and poses that are his signature, is pleasingly restrained, while Booth, bucktoothed like a Dickensian Freddie Mercury, lifts Leno out of caricature.
As for Cooke, so terrific in the US indie flick Me and Earl and the Dying Girl, her reputation continues to soar. Whether Lizzie is singing proudly on stage or stoically accepting her fate, Medina teases out every nuance from her character in a film where nuance is generally overshadowed by a Grand Guignol aesthetic.
The Limehouse Golem may be hokum, but it’s glorious hokum that brings something fresh to the stale old cadaver of Victorian melodrama.