Critic Reviews

Performed with gusto by Richard E. Grant and Claire Foy, as a couple of Georgian grotesques sacrificing everything to host the aspirational dinner party of their dreams, it derives an odd poignancy from the smallness of its stakes, and the severity of its consequences.

Black-belt performances from Claire Foy and Richard E Grant put some vim and vigour into this haranguingly one-note and unidirectional period romp of the raucously bewigged and be-poxed 18th century.

A more ambitious and genuinely subversive film would have dug a little deeper into this muddy ground. As it is, Savage House is an amusing diversion powered by a pair of devilishly game performances.

Savage House is caught, then, in a conundrum like that posing its characters: It’s too respectable to entirely ignore, yet too obvious and coarse to entertain those whose attention it courts.

Unfortunately, the film takes too long to get to a destination – a festering hive of human corruption – that’s inevitable given the first 20 minutes of boozing, humping and double dealing. The dialogue feels inauthentic. The decadence is forced. Nothing about this is very much fun. Mr Barry Lyndon need not beware.

There are duels à la Thackeray. There are classical snippets borrowed from sundry Kubrick soundtracks for added pomp. But, unfortunately, there’s never a real reason to stay this grim film’s course.