SLEUTH
Kenneth Branagh

„So you are fucking my wife?“ says Michael Caine early on to Jude Law in Kenneth Branagh's new film Sleuth. Straight away it is made clear that the tone is different in this remake of Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s 1972 film of the same title. Calling it a remake however does not do this new film justice. Like the location, an old country estate on the outside but on the inside a highly stylised palace ridden with security cameras, the new film is a luxuriously reinvention. The screenplay is by none other than Nobel Prize laureate Harold Pinter who is far too clever to fall into the trap of simply updating Anthony Shaffer’s stage play. He has made it his own. The fabulous dialogue is Pinter is through and through.

Milo Tindle (Jude Law), the wife’s lover, visits crime writer Andrew Wyke (Michael Caine) asking him to divorce her. Wyke involves the young man in a dangerous cat and mouse game in which personal vanities, hurt pride and simple spite clash. What seemingly starts as an insurance fraud soon spindles out of control. The setting is cold and uncomfortable. White marble floors and designer furniture are wrapped into blue light, every fancy feature of the house is controlled by a tiny remote control. There are no doors but entire walls move and every movement is constantly detected by a high tech security system. Michael Caine and Jude Law are fabulous in a film that heavily relies on its superb actors. Their style is theatrical as they throw the perfectly composed dialogues at each other, seldom responding to but rather testing the actual meaning of what they hear.

Kenneth Branagh knows exactly how to make the most of his actors and he indulges in their art as well as the script and the set, while creating a beautiful cinematic look. The film effortlessly joins into the work of this director who makes highly clever films that hit the stomach first and then the intellect, leaving both satisfied. It seems a futile effort to judge this film on comparison to its predecessor. It may share the title but it does what a remake always should, it stands completely on its own two feet.