Stylish thriller lacks bite - Film - Arts - Evening Standard
       

Stylish thriller lacks bite

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Australian writer-director Gregory Read's film about a schoolboy's macabre murder in a British public school purports to be a study of the twisted mind of the young man accused of the crime.

However, it works better as a genuinely stylish thriller in which a good cast, led by Toni Collette as a forensic psychologist, manoeuvre their way through a puzzle of a plot with some skill.

Moving backwards and forwards in time, Read posits that the dead boy (Tom Sturridge) and student accused of his murder (Eddie Redmayne) are high achievers vying to control each other, and that neither is exactly innocent. A more straightforward version of events might have given the film more dramatic bite.

Like Minds
Cert: 15

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