13-15 Feb 2004

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Christie Malry’s Own
Double-Entry

Programme Notes

 

DIRECTED BY:
Paul Tickell

STARRING:
Nick Moran
Neil Stuke
Kate Ashfield

RUNNING TIME:
1 hour 29 minutes

LANGUAGE:
English and Italian
Subtitled in English

 

Paul Tickell was born in Carlisle. His first feature film, Crush Proof, was released in 1999. Malry is the second of Paul's feature films and was released in 2000. The film is based on the novel by cult writer BS Johnson. BS Johnson was born in 1933 and is best remembered as an innovative British writer of the 1960's and 1970's. He was also a film director who released two short features. He committed suicide in 1973.

On its release, Malry was very well reviewed by critics (Uncut magazine had it as one of the best films of 2000) but its distribution was severely restricted. It became more widely available following a screening at the 2001 Raindance Film Festival. However, following September 11, the theme of urban terrorism was not one that attracted audiences and the film has been little seen on the big screen.

There is, however, much, much more to the story of Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry and subject to work commitments, we hope to have both Paul Tickell and Nick Moran present to host a question and answer session after the screening.

Nick Moran first came to prominence in Buddy Song when he starred alongside Chesney Hawkes and Roger Daltry. For the moment, he is probably best know for his role as Eddy in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

The following review is by Neil Norman of The Evening Standard

Seemingly unrestricted by its limited budget, the film is extraordinarily inventive, both visually and philosophically. Tickell even manages to open out the novel's conceit about accountancy applied to the real world by writing scenes set in 15th century Italy, when a Franciscan monk invented the system of double-entry book-keeping.

Christie Malry (Nick Moran) is the ultimate disaffected youth; a pre-Punk Billy Liar, he is a kind of Everysociopath. He lives alone with his cancer-ridden mum (Sally-Ann Field) and his ambitions are simple enough: to acquire money and sexual experience, "loads of it".

Leaving the bank where he is an anonymous clerk, he joins a sweet factory and takes night classes in double entry book-keeping. Soon, through a strong sense of personal injustice and a curious revelation precipitated by the death of his mother, he realises he can utilise the accounting system to run his life. Grievances and slights are subsequently logged and accounted for through retaliatory acts of revenge: a scratched Rolls-Royce, a deliberately mislaid memo, a catastrophically rewritten order for carbon paper. But as Malry's paranoia increases, so his acts of anarchy escalate to the point of terrorism; he is at war with society, a oneman, home-grown al Qaeda.

A satisfying sexual relationship with a girl from the local butcher's notwithstanding, Malry tips over into lunatic fantasy - planting a bomb beneath the offices of the Inland Revenue (who has not fantasised about that?) pouring poison into London's water supply and, finally, plotting to blow up the Houses of Parliament.

How it all comes down and what judgment is meted out I will leave you to discover. Suffice to say this is the kind of British movie that I thought had breathed its last with the death of Lindsay Anderson - a scalding social satire that fuses the comically remodelled idealism of Guy Fawkes with the nihilism of Luke Reinhardt's The Dice Man.

Moran is terrific as Malry - damping down his natural cheeky chappy Lock, Stock persona into a none-too-bright wilful child/man whose blankness disguises a seething contempt for authority and an exaggerated sense of personal injury. So, too, is Kate Ashfield as Malry's girlfriend, Carol, a girl whose sexual expertise with a vacuum cleaner is just one of her endearing characteristics.

The allegorical nature of Johnson's book is well-maintained in the transition from page to screen, and legitimises a subject that might have been open to accusations of gratuitous irresponsibility. Shocking, and rightly so, Malry's dead-eyed rage is the result of impotent fantasy, and Tickell's intelligent treatment allows an empathetic connection to be made even while we condemn his actions. It is provocative, alarming and preposterously entertaining.

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