A chef with gambling problems flees to a Latin American villa where he assumes another man’s identity…
Grimmfest Says: Starting out as an engrossing existential thriller of purloined identity, a South American spin on Patricia Highsmith’s TALENTED MR RIPLEY with just a hint of Graham Greene, this dark and devious movie swiftly and unexpectedly swerves sideways into more slippery and satiric territory, as the grim realities of the protagonist’s adopted life become all-too-brutally apparent. Walking a fine line between mordant and macabre black comedy and total screaming nightmare, it takes the essential idea of the classic Stanley Ellin tale “The Speciality of The House”, and translates it into a contemporary world of ultra-exclusive haut cuisine parties in exotic locations, organised by a shadowy cabal of vulture capitalists, nouveau riche oligarchs and old money aristocrats. Nick Stahl is extraordinary as the increasingly morally compromised protagonist, bartering away his soul, piece by piece, from the moment we first meet him, and Tamsin Topolski matches him note for note as the icily entitled Kate Middleton type who makes him an offer he cannot refuse, however desperately he might want to. Carefully paced, elegantly staged and coldly droll, the film has something of the pokerfaced, dry wit and quiet surrealism of late period Bunuel, the sly subversiveness of Alain Jessua’s seminal cult classic SHOCK TREATMENT and the urbane, polite cruelty of a Paul Bowles short story. The end result is a study in sophisticated savagery that you will not easily forget. Grimmfest is delighted to be presenting the film’s regional Premiere.