The Limehouse Golem

(Warning: contains spoilers for The Limehouse Golem)

In pre-Ripper London, Inspector John Kildare (Bill Nighy) is tasked with the dubious fortune of investigating and uncovering the identity of the eponymous Limehouse Golem, a serial killer with no apparent modus operandi.  Kildare knows that his appointment is tainted - Scotland Yard have come to a dead end, and - not wanting to risk the reputation of their best people - Kildare is appointed, with Sergeant Flood (Daniel Mays).
There are four potential suspects - Karl Marx (Henry Goodman), George Gissing (Morgan Watkins), Dan Leno (Douglas Booth) and John Cree (Sam Reid), but Cree is found dead - killed on the same night as the last Golem murder.  His wife - music hall star Lizzie Cree (Olivia Cooke) - is believed to have poisoned him.  Kildare finds links between Cree and the Golem, theorises that John Cree has in fact killed himself to assuage his guilt of being a murderer, and must solve both cases before Lizzie's trial ends and she is sentenced to hang.  The game is afoot!

More posters with Bill Nighy, please.

Based on the 1994 Peter Ackroyd novel (Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem), this film has been adapted for the screen by Jane Goldman (Kick-Ass, Stardust, Kingsman, The Woman In Black).  A lot of Goldman's past works have been dark, but usually there is humour to alleviate it (although in this case, colour is found in the music hall scenes) .  Similarly, Bill Nighy's previous works would suggest that there would be some levity in proceedings, but he doesn't crack a smile.  It's not that kind of film.
That said, it's a bit difficult to describe what kind of film this is - it's part whodunnit, a bit horror, some period drama with a dollop of Penny Dreadful noir, and fright-lite (not dissimilar to The Woman in Black, come to think of it).

There's a lot to unpack from this two hour duration, and my main criticism is that there's not a lot of time and space to let the characters, their stories, and the themes breathe and develop.  In that two hours, there's multiple points at which you could stop the story and just explore the avenue that we find ourselves at the junction of (feminism, LGBT representation, poverty, real-life vs role play, trial by public, media intrusion to name a few).  But the carriage doesn't stop, and instead the audience hurtles on to solve its mystery.  I wonder if this might have made for a better television show (it didn't do The Night Manager any harm) - it feels made for a Sunday night.

I enjoyed the story-telling a great deal - told in flashback from the end to the beginning and back again, the pace and momentum build steadily to a slightly hysterical conclusion before slowing down again to a more leisurely pace.  The ending is somewhat Se7en-esque in its conclusion, though less memorable.

Not Bill Nighy at the end of this film.

The casting is great.  I believe this is Bill Nighy's first time leading in a film (replacing Alan Rickman following his death in 2016 - the film itself is dedicated to Rickman), and he holds proceedings together well.  He conveys much in a glance or a twitch which contrasts nicely, because there is a lot of info-dumping by other characters throughout.  Daniel Mays is a great sidekick and his subtle coming out scene with Nighy was beautifully done (believing Kildare to be the laughing stock of Scotland Yard because of his sexual orientation, he chooses a quiet moment to say "I'm...on your side, sir").  I would happily watch a lot more of the adventures of Kildare and Flood.  On the civilian side of proceedings, Olivia Cooke was great as Lizzie Cree - victim, survivor, darling.  There were a lot of facets to Lizzie Cree, and Cooke made each of them believable and sympathetic.  The supporting cast was good, though I'm not sure of the significance of three real-life personalities (Gissing, Marx and Leno) as murder suspects.  It is worth singling Douglas Booth's Dan Leno out - he stole every scene he was in, I don't think I've seen him in anything else before, and I was convinced for a while that he was Russell Brand.

Rickman's Limehouse Golem would have been very different.
The murderer would have been revealed to a much more sardonic Kildare.

The feminist theme in the film is particularly noteworthy.  The main male characters - for self-serving, or well-meaning reasons - all attempt to save the women.  None of whom are damsels in distress, and none of whom want saving (nor need help).  The term "white knight" is bandied around a fair bit.  Whether or not it can be deemed a "feminist film" is a subject for later debate.  I think this film may achieve cult status over the coming years - there's a lot to unpick. 

One worth watching, though maybe wait for it to leave the cinema.

Additional thoughts, comments and questions:
1.  Juan Carlos Medina's London is mainly filmed in West Yorkshire - I didn't notice.  The next time I watch this will be to see if there's anywhere I recognise.

2.  I wonder how different Love, Actually would be if Rickman and Nighy swapped roles.

3.  Warning:  there is a lot of blood.  And some ocular trauma.

4.  Lizzie Cree has the biggest prison cell, possibly ever.