The Spectator - February 08, 2018

BOOKS & ARTS

Cinema

From Russia with no love

Deborah Ross

Loveless

15, Key Cities

Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Loveless is, indeed,

devastatingly loveless, as well as devastat-

ingly pitiless, which does not sound hope-

ful. Yet it is also devastatingly haunting,

absorbing and transfixing. It’s a domes-

tic drama about a missing boy that’s been

widely taken as a state-of-the-nation drama

about Russia today — a From Russia With

No Love Whatsoever, if you like. But it may

well be about the state of us all, which is

the most devastating of all the devastatings.

Generally, it’s just so much nicer to point

the finger at others than at ourselves. (I

have always found it to be much less devas-

tating this way.)

Set in the environs of Moscow, the film

opens with a shot of a school and the chil-

dren pouring out at the end of the day. One

fine as D.H. Lawrence or T.S Eliot, Aldous

Huxley or James Joyce. He’s probably the

only actor alive who could play both Har-

old Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West. But

he’s no Brutus. His get-up here plainly sug-

gests a 1920s Bohemian. He wears a half-

hearted beard, a trench coat, and a pair of

black-rimmed specs. We see him plotting

Caesar’s assassination while seated at an

oak desk (is he editing The Criterion on

the side?), and when he produces a sock-

ing great pistol from a drawer he touches it

with anxious wonder, as if he were Mother

Teresa handling a rechargeable vibrator.

The decision to match Whishaw’s Brutus

with a female Cassius gives their squab-

bling friendship, so exquisitely drawn

by Shakespeare, an air of heterosexual

romance. Mad, daft and wrong.

Hampstead’s new play Dry Powder looks

at a financial endeavour once known as

‘asset-stripping’. Nowadays these profiteers

use the label ‘venture capitalism’, which is

like a serial killer calling himself a ‘pallia-

tive care specialist’. American writer Sarah

Burgess takes a big risk by focusing on char-

acters noted for their avarice and cynicism.

Even riskier, she makes them live up to

the stereotype. Everyone here is cold, sin-

ister and ruthlessly greedy. But the results

are magnificent. Mamet-like in its precision,

savage in its depiction of human malice, the

play has the saving grace of even-handed-

ness. It lets us reach our own judgment.

Burgess skilfully lays out her plot so that

the central dilemma — jobs versus profits —

enters our minds by stealth. A big US firm

is on offer at a knockdown price and the

vultures are secretly plotting to shift pro-

duction to Asia once the sale is complete.

The owner, Jeff, has promised job securi-

ty to his US staff and one of the bankers,

Seth, whose wife is pregnant, argues that

the US factory should be retained, purely

for PR purposes. Seth’s partners outsmart

him and offer Jeff a ‘bonus’ (or bribe) and

the choice becomes his. To betray his work-

ers or to spurn a fortune?

The cast of four is led by Hayley Atwell

(Jenny), a dollar-monster whose lust for

profit is a cover for her emotional emp-

tiness. Atwell turns this heartless and

humourless ogre into a figure of genuine

pathos. At the end, she delivered a mono-

logue that had me sighing with mirth and

sorrow. An extraordinary effect. All the

ingredients are here for a transfer: big star,

small cast, simple design. West End pro-

ducers are often accused of being philis-

tines who stuff theatreland with risk-free

revivals or Spotify musicals. The truth is

that they dream of a show like this: a whip-

smart new play that salutes the audience’s

intelligence and won’t break the bank. It’s

very funny too, but these are the saddest

laughs you’ll ever hear.

Mamet-like in its precision, savage in

its depiction of human malice, this has

the saving grace of even-handedness

MANUEL HARLAN

David Calder as Caesar in Nicholas Hytner’s Julius Caesar