Film Review - The Limehouse Golem (15)

Even madness has its own logic.

The Limehouse Golem was promoted as a Jack the Ripper-style murder mystery set in 1880s London, but turns out to be a story of much greater depth. Based on Peter Ackroyd's 1994 novel Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem, it lingers more in the music halls of the day and among the stacks of the British Library than around gory crime scenes, (thought the latter get plenty of screen time too). Lovers of blood-soaked costume melodrama will not be short-changed, but neither will those who like something a bit more cerebral.

The film is structured initially like a conventional detective drama. The brooding Inspector Kildare (Bill Nighy) is drafted in to investigate a batch of murders in East London's Limehouse district, so gruesome that locals are attributing them to a supernatural source - the mythical 'golem'. His investigations swiftly tie in with an ongoing murder trial - a hapless young woman called Elizabeth Cree (Olivia Cooke), who faces execution if convicted. Uncovering the truth behind the golem killings and the crime of which Elizabeth stands accused becomes Kildare's joint obsession.

Those expecting (like me) a linear Sherlock Holmes-style investigation will experience something surprisingly different. Screenwriter Jane Goldman is as much interested in Victorian music hall, and the film recreates this in all its seedy glory. The theatre and backstage areas are populated with vivid, bickering characters, not least Dan Leno - the renowned stage comedian of the era. 

Played by Douglas Booth he's one of several real-life characters woven into the complex tapestry of the plot. He's also the most vibrantly portrayed. This is a story about reality and artifice after all - about false personas and alter-egos and what brews beneath the surface. About the kind of deep-seated passions that result in vicious blood-letting.

The film's greatest success, perhaps, is incorporating the original novel's fascination with historical London. Ackroyd is chiefly known as a biographer - of Dickens, Blake and the City itself - and his knowledge is brought to bear here visually. London Town looks magnificent and squalid by turns, its buildings and costumes realised in all their detail, however tawdry or beautiful. Its personalities are vivid too, as played by a wonderful cast of character actors - Daniel Mays as the earnest copper aiding the Inspector, or Eddie Marsan as 'Uncle', the affable manager of the theatre troupe, to pick out two from the colourful bunch.

The Limehouse Golem is an intricate puzzle of a film, full of characters you think you know, but very possibly don't. Long after the story's final revelations the ambiguities will stay with you, as will the 1880s London in its filthy beauty. It's a movie that frustrates and fascinates at the same time and I recommend that you see it with a friend. There'll be a lot to talk about.

Gut Reaction: Absorbed at all points - leaning forward to take in all that delicious visual detail.

Ed's Verdict: Despite its stately pace, this is a gorgeously made film with much more going on than you might expect going in...