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(See How They Run • 2022 ‧ Mystery/Crime ‧ 1h 38m • Showtimes.London •
Fri 9 Sept • Sat 10 Sept • Sun 11 Sept • Mon 12 Sept • Tue 13 Sept • Wed 14 Sept • Thu 15 Sept •
Empire Cinemas - London Haymarket, 400 m·63-65 Haymarket, LONDON SW1Y 4RL, United Kingdom, 17:00 • 19:30
ODEON Luxe, 400 m·24-26 Leicester Square, LONDON WC2H 7JY, United Kingdom, 15:45 • 18:15 • 20:45 •
Leicester Square, 400 m·Leicester Square, LONDON WC2H 7NA, United Kingdom, 13:00 • 15:30 • 18:00 • 20:30
Vue Cinema London - West End (Leicester Square), 500 m·Leicester Square, 3 Cranbourn Street, LONDON WC2H 7AL, United Kingdom, 14:00 • 15:40 • 18:10 ▪ 20:40
Vue Cinema London - Piccadilly, 550 m·19 Lower Regent Street, LONDON SW1Y 4LR, United Kingdom, 17:50 • 19:30
Picturehouse Central, 600 m·Piccadilly Circus, 13 Coventry Street, LONDON W1D 7DH, United Kingdom, 13:40 • 16:00 • 18:20 • 20:40)
"See How They Run"
In the West End of 1950s London, plans for a movie version of a smash-hit play come to an abrupt halt after the film’s Hollywood director is murdered. When world-weary Inspector Stoppard (Sam Rockwell) and eager rookie Constable Stalker (Saoirse Ronan) take on the case, the two find themselves thrown into a puzzling whodunit within the glamorously sordid theater underground, investigating the mysterious homicide at their own peril.
On London’s West End, the long-running play 'The Mousetrap' is a hit and Hollywood comes knocking at the stage door. Arrogant American director, Leo Kopernick (Adrien Brody), blacklisted in the U.S., gets the job to adapt the murder mystery to the screen with a script by Mervyn Cocker-Norris (David Oyelowo). However, anticipating all eventualities, that shrewd matriarch of mystery known here only as the Dame (Shirley Henderson) has inserted a caveat in her contract, the producers can’t film the play until six months after it's theatrical run ends. As actual corpses begin piling up backstage, a cynical Scotland Yard detective Inspector Stoppard and an enthusiastic newbie Constable Stalker have to reconcile their personal differences on the way to identifying the killer. Turning adversity into opportunity, the film sets a playful tone as an antidote to dark times and to celebrate the life of the theater.
Odd-couple investigative pairings appear frequently in mysteries, the crime fighters at the movie’s center are opposites who ultimately must surmount their differences to catch the culprit. They drive everything with wit and skilled sleuthing. At it's heart, the story of Stoppard and Striker is one about partnership and the teamwork required to achieve something. Neither of them anticipate that they might work well together at the start, but it feels like it could be an exciting thing by the end and it’s very funny along the way. Stoppard is a drunk, sexist Inspector from Scotland Yard who has post-traumatic stress from the war and his wife has left him. He has a Nat King Cole thing going; this moustache is clearly a Clark Gable wannabe. And then the clothes, this is a person who has a sense of himself and is very presentational in terms of his personality. He’s sort of a tragic, dark character in a comic arena. Stoppard is pretty broken when we meet him. He’s just gotten a bit lazy. He’s a bit bored, melancholic and fed up. There’s a bit of redemption. He learns how to become a better person and a better detective.
Stalker is very, very green, new to the job and eager, that’s really where the story begins. Stalker is way over her head. She’s suddenly put on this massive murder case, so she’s incredibly nervous about doing a good job while also being unbelievably excited by the fact that she's in the theatre world and surrounded by movie and theater stars. This is weirdly like a dream come true for her, it’s like she’s watching a movie play right in. The audience follows Stoppard and Stalker as they try to figure out who's running around killing people in the West End. Over the course of their investigation, through theaters, posh hotels and country homes, the pair take a journey. Despite himself, Stoppard finds a bit of redemption, learning from his cohort. They change each other unexpectedly, he helps her grow up a little bit, and she helps him find some of his vivacity and the energy he used to have.
Leo Kopernick is a blacklisted Hollywood film director. He's arrogant and abrasive, with little respect for London theater culture. At the time during the Cold War, if anyone within the entertainment sector had any kind of alliance or assumed alliance with communism, they were blacklisted. So, the backstory really is that Leo refused to name names in a hearing and is still working his way. Leo, like any filmmaker, is very passionate about his vision. He’s very extreme, larger than life and entertaining, and probably not the most likeable guy. Leo was hired to take the very successful theatre production and make a film version of it. And along the way, he infuriates everyone. Petula 'Choo" Spencer (Ruth Wilson) is a prominent theater impresario. Scandalized by the actual corpses that are cropping up on the set of her murder mystery, she runs the play of 'The Mouse Trap'. A sort of haughty Madame, and a great counterpoint to these other fools she has to deal with. John Woolf (Reece Shearsmith) is a respected film producer. Woolf has this sort of slight desperation, even though he must charm everyone while sweating underneath. He’s desperate to get his film made.
Richard Attenborough (Harris Dickinson) is a slightly pompous actor in the play. With an insecurity underneath. Dickie slightly believes he's the character he plays on stage, which he's not. Agatha Christie (Shirley Henderson) is the Queen of crime and popular author of the play. In the film, she’s in her fifties, very happily married to Max with a grown-up daughter. At the end we find her trying to come up with the ending of another book. Ann Saville (Pippa Bennett Warner) is Woolf’s personal secretary and mistress. They sneak around to hilarity until Kapernik discovers their relationship and uses it to blackmail Woolf. Edana Romney (Sian Clifford) is Woolf’s wife. A hobbyist clairvoyant. A rather eccentric character, very much into psychic abilities, with her tarot cards and astrology, and a marriage on the rocks. Mervyn Crocker-Norris is a celebrated screenwriter. A mildly successful, pretentious playwright, who has been tasked with adapting the play into a film. Crocker-Norris proves a frothy side in the film-within-the-film. This character is delicious and frivolous and self-important.
Running for 68 years, 'The Mousetrap' stood out. "See How They Run" is set during the celebration of the play’s 100th performance, and while the mood is postwar, pre-sexual revolution Britain, the artists behind the camera took a playful approach to the representation of those middle ages of the 20th Century, the 1950’s. This is an era close to Dicks-Mireaux’s heart. It’s not so much the shapes but it’s the transitional social world, the change from the 1940s into this new world of the 1950s. What you get is a contrast of shapes which are quite well-defined and flattering on a lot of people. You've some latitude with some aspects of the design, like some of the furniture is not strictly 1950s but other aspects of it, like technology, have to be. So, it’s interesting knowing where you draw the line and which bits you’re going to be really authentic with and which bits you've some creative freedom with.
We've a big contrast between the Stoppard and Stalker world to the theatre world, elevated with their colors and choices and combinations. A murder mystery with deliciously smart humor set against the backdrop of arguably the world’s most famous murder mystery is a gem of an idea that plays enticingly between fact and fiction. It's a big leap to take on this kind of period project about a British literary icon. About the transition from TV to film. The script comes off the page as funny, smart and witty and has all the kind of the range of comic elements. It’s a pretty zany plot with some poignant moments. It’s a satirical and farcical look at the murder mystery genre.
Written by Gregory Mann
