Candlestick – ★ ★ ★ ★ DVD Review

A film that professes to be Hitchcock-esque and a stylized throwback to vintage 1950s cinema with a contemporary setting, you bet I wanted to see this!  And boy am I glad that I did.  If you’re a fan of Hitchcock, a fan of clever and well written thrillers, a fan of murder and mystery, or even just a fan of the board game Clue, I suggest you check this one out.  I’ll warn you though, it took me a few scenes to warm up to it.  At first, I thought the acting was a little sub par, and I wasn’t really “feeling” this movie, but then I got it and realized what they were trying to achieve and how they were going about doing it.  From then on Candlestick was great and very easy to enjoy.

Jack (Andrew Fitch) is having an affair with Vera (Isla Ure), the wife of his best friend Frank (Nigel Thomas).  Setting up a social gathering for his friends Frank and Vera, police Inspector Marcus Evans (Dan March) and his uncle (Major Burns played by Tom Knight), Jack carefully plans a little “social experiment” and invites everyone to arrive at staggered intervals so he can prepare them for the night’s entertainment.  He begins with Frank, when he plants the seed of suspicion when he suggests that Vera may be having an affair.  Can he disrupt the couple’s happy marriage?  Could he convince Frank to leave Vera?  That doesn’t seem challenging enough for Jack though, who fancies himself the “smartest man in the room”.  Maybe he could convince Frank to murder Vera!  Could he pull off the perfect murder simply by his carefully planted suggestions?

Candlestick had very obvious and clear Hitchcock influences, and it didn’t shy away from them, in fact it embraced them with dashing results.  Every shot and every line felt as though it had a deeper purpose to the story.  The film really felt very “English”, and really came across like a play.  It was pretty much shot in one contained set, though we did see several rooms of the apartment as it was a very open concept flat.  The acting was very theatrical and at times purposely over the top, often utilizing soliloquies (some cleverly disguised as telephone calls) to advance the ever twisting plot.  This is what really threw me off at first, but as I said, once I figured out what the filmmakers were doing, the style of the film really had me hooked.  Twists and turns abound, as we eventually find out why Jack has set all this in motion, a moment that left me a little bit in awe, as we’re left to wonder if the best laid plans of Jack will come back to bite him in the end.  Perhaps they’ll even get him before the film ends.

Bottom Line: I may think twice the next time someone suggests we play Clue at my next board game night…