Hello everyone... Nina here to present another installment of "Across the Pond," Dominique Taylor's semi-regular column focusing on the UK entertainment scene.
Hurt's So Good
By Dominique Taylor
There are very few things more English than a good old murder and even fewer people a truer Englishman than John Hurt, so to see the two come together in Oxford Murders is a relief for Inspector Morse and Alien fans alike. But throw Argentinean novelist Guillermo Martinez, Spanish director Alex De la Iglesia and his co-writer Jorge Guerricaechevarria into the mix and suddenly things are less straight forward.
Martinez’s award-winning novel is Da Vinci Code-like in its plot – an Oxford Professor helps out his student after the latter finds his land lady dead. They soon discover she was part of the enigma code-breaking team in World War II and a race against the clock ensues as the pair strive to prevent any more murders happening by tracing mathematical symbols.
A great plot, but have we sort of heard it before? For those of you still smarting from the disappointment of The Code, I can feel your pain. Can De la Iglesia really produce the goods? So far he has worked within a rather different world to that proposed by Oxford Murders and Hurt. Usually writing and directing films in Spanish, he has become a cult director of the crime genre, but usually with a comic edge such as Crimen Ferpecto (2004) and La Comunidad (2000).
However, making the move to enlist John Hurt onto the project is definitely a positive start (much better than Hanks as Landon) and should serve as a move away from comedy in a plot which seemingly has no room for it. Not that Hurt is a stranger to comedy, of course, but I think we’ll all agree the Chesterfield CBE’r is more 1984 than Spaceballs.
Filming will take place in London and Oxford, but dates for production are as yet unconfirmed.
