Certificate: 15

Running Time: 90 mins

UK Distributor: Signature Entertainment

UK Release Date: 11 November 2024

WHO’S IN MAGPIE?

Daisy Ridley, Shazad Latif, Matilda Lutz, Hiba Ahmed, Cherrelle Skeete, Pippa Bennett-Warner, Alistair Petrie

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

Sam Yates (director), Tom Bateman (writer, producer), Camilla Bray, Daisy Ridley and Kate Solomon (producers), Isobel Waller-Bridge (composer), Laura Bellingham (cinematographer), Christopher Watson (editor)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

A mother (Ridley) becomes disturbed by her husband’s (Latif) attraction to a movie star (Lutz)…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON BIRD?

Folks in the film world often like to use the phrase “Hitchcockian” to describe something that offers as much intrigue, suspense and excitement as some of the actual Alfred Hitchcock’s most famous movies. Is it overused? Certainly, as the phrase carries a certain expectation given the infamous filmmaker’s prestige factor, which eight times out of ten the film being described as such struggles or even fails to live up to.

But when it’s called for, as it is with director Sam Yates’s engaging and – yes – Hitchcockian debut feature Magpie, it can be such a treat to experience, as you would the likes of Psycho or The Birds. While the film isn’t exactly on the same level as those classic films (because of course it isn’t), it offers a rich and thoughtful ride that leaves you guessing right up until the final few minutes, at which point you’re eager to try it all over again.

Yates directs from a script by Tom Bateman, itself based on an original idea by Daisy Ridley, who also stars as Anette, a young woman married to author Ben (Shazad Latif) with their young daughter Tilly (Hiba Ahmed) and a six-month-old baby. When Tilly is cast in a costume drama opposite famed Italian starlet Alicia (Matilda Lutz), Ben chaperones his daughter to the set, leaving Anette alone with the baby in their idyllic but isolated countryside home. As Anette’s mental condition worsens due to the stresses of motherhood and having nobody else around to help her, Ben becomes increasingly infatuated with Alicia, to almost obsessive degrees, which does not appear to soothe Anette when she catches wind of his new fascination.

What is initially striking about Magpie is that, at first, it appears to blatantly signpost where things are going. Almost right away, you pick up on a number of alarming mannerisms that Daisy Ridley’s Anette displays when alone or when communicating with people like her husband, including a particularly unnerving solo scene that ends with a mirror being partially shattered, or one fantastically executed sequence that involves running barefoot from a screaming baby and into the dimly lit country fields. That, along with the chilling musical score by Isobel Waller-Bridge, seems to imply that there is a Gone Girl-style level of craziness to this character, as her isolation evolves into growing paranoia that ultimately puts her against this potential threat to her marriage and ultimate way of life. Furthermore, it appears to be setting up Matilda Lutz’s Alicia as the threat itself, for she is (at least, in the fictional movie she is making) the kind of mother toward young Tilly that Anette cannot be, and there is an ambiguity to her character that makes you feel as though she could go full Single White Female at any moment.

Then, as you learn more about these people, including and especially Shazad Latif’s Ben – the common denominator in this situation – the further you realise that there is something horrible indeed going down here, but not because of Alicia or even Anette. The minute we meet him, Ben is an extremely loathsome character, one who constantly treats his wife like trash with curt passive-aggressive remarks (when trying on outfits for a meeting, he comments that she looks too butch), and often puts his own needs above anyone else, including but not limited to his own daughter, especially when his new crush is involved. His hurtful, controlling behaviour is the catalyst of every bad thing in this movie, including Anette’s severe mental health issues which have clearly come from bearing the brunt of a toxic relationship with an utter narcissist. Once that becomes more than apparent, you realise that rather than fearing Anette’s psychological breakdown, you are instead rooting for it, and for her to take back control of her life by exacting sweet justice on the root of all her problems, as well as sparing Alicia from his grasp when the two of them begin swapping intimate texts with one another.

The film unfolds with striking precision, as director Yates takes Bateman’s layered if occasionally simplistic script and applies a finely tuned style to it, one that employs an underlying campiness to an otherwise sinister situation. Certain lighting choices and aspects of Waller-Bridge’s score resemble something out of a cheesy soap opera, and that is meant as a compliment because Yates makes it fun to watch this relationship fall apart with all the calculated mind games that she is playing with him. The performances also help to exemplify the theatricality, with Ridley delivering one of her strongest performances (in a year that, between this and Young Woman and the Sea and Sometimes I Think About Dying, has seen her really blossom into a compelling dramatic actor outside her franchise comfort zones) as she conveys every unnerved micro-aggression with a chilling yet powerfully understated turn, while Latif perfectly lays on the sleaze as someone who you love to hate. Lutz, though given less to do among the three leads, emerges as a capable outlier that provides a potential new victim for Ben’s possessive nature should things go more south than they currently are.

It all leads to a final twist that, in nearly every aspect, earns Magpie its “Hitchcockian” label. From the editing to the soundtrack choices, it’s a turn that is very well-played, and makes every single thing you’ve seen prior not only have a purpose, but also unveils extra layers that you didn’t realise were even there. Most of all, it is incredibly satisfying to watch unfold, and like some of the most entertaining Hitchcock films it leaves you in an unexpectedly excited mood, as well as with the feeling that you’ve had more fun than you’d normally expect with this kind of psychological thriller.

SO, TO SUM UP…

Magpie is a suspenseful and surprisingly fun psychological thriller that subverts expectations to peel back the layers of its central toxic relationship, with director Sam Yates mining some worthwhile entertainment from Tom Bateman’s intriguing if simplistic script that revels in its devilishly campy elements, boosted by never-better performances from Daisy Ridley and Shazad Latif, the latter playing one of the year’s most despicable antagonists.

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