Contains Spoilers: There should be a special filmmakers' hell for movies that purport to give us new or subversive angles on old themes, and instead wind up reinforcing hoary, hideous old stereotypes. Here we have a "racy" look at a dysfunctional Victorian family, with a sympathetic pitch for an adulterous, manipulative wife accused of murder; she is "only following my nature" and laments that society will punish her for it. So who is the real culprit? Why, a fat, homosexual, woman-hating, mother-hating transvestite! The film might as well have been made in 1955, for all the new insight it sheds on Victorian mores. How much more daring -- and logical! -- if the gay member of the family ("only following my nature") had been made the sympathetic victim, instead of the filmmakers' scapegoat. On top of this, as other reviewers have made clear, the plot simply makes no sense. Despite a cast of pros and good production values, the result is very shoddy.
Review of The Blackheath Poisonings
