The Reel Review
A British couple’s already rocky marriage quickly deteriorates after the husband becomes obsessed with a glamorous but controversial actress who is starring in a movie being filmed with their young daughter. Daisy Ridley, Shazad Latif and Matilda Lutz star in this cat-and-mouse psychological thriller.
On its surface, Magpie looks like any other run-of-the-mill melodrama about an unhappy marriage – with the beautifully posh but sterile contemporary house in the country and a husband and wife who have no apparent source of income to pay for it. But this story from actor and screenwriter Tom Bateman (Hercule Poirot’s friend Bouc in Death on the Nile and Murder on the Orient Express) and director Sam Yates (National Theater Live: Vanya) is actually quite riveting. When an increasingly rattled Annette notices her husband Ben’s obsession with the beautiful movie star (Matilda Lutz), she goes through his phone while he’s sleeping. We gradually discover the she has valid reasons for being suspicious. It turns out that Ben (Shazad Latif) is a reprehensible villain – a selfish, cheating cad of a husband who had abandoned Annette for eight months following the birth of their second child. It is time for Annette to take action.
While the big twist itself is not all that surprising (anyone paying even the slightest attention should figure it out), the how behind its execution IS pretty clever, culminating in an immensely satisfying, suspenseful potboiler of an ending. Ridley, Latif (Falling for Figaro, The Commuter) and Lutz (Final Cut, Revenge) all play their parts really well. Bravo!
REEL FACTS
• Best known for her starring role in the latest Star Wars movie trilogy, Daisy Ridley and Magpie writer and husband Tom Bateman began their relationship while meeting on the set of 2017’s Murder on the Orient Express.
• Best known for his role as Chief Security Officer Ash Tyler in Star Trek: Discovery, Shazad Latif stars as Captain Nemo in the 2024 British miniseries Nautilus.
• Italian model and actress Matilda Lutz will next appear as the title character in the reboot of the sword and sorcery fantasy film Red Sonja.
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