Shallow Grave (1994)
Christopher Eccleston, Kerry Fox, Ewan McGregor; d. Danny Boyle; A-

Shallow Grave, the 1994 directorial debut of Trainspotting and The Beach director Danny Boyle, follows three Scottish flat mates and their encounter with a corpse and a suitcase full of money. Alex Law (Trainspotting and Moulin Rouge star Ewan McGregor), a journalist, is a 5 year old crawling out of the skin of a twenty something. Loud, rude, and unabashedly narcissistic, Alex, at first glance, seems to be a fish out of water in context with his other two roommates. David Stephens (Elizabeth’s Christopher Eccleston), an accountant, is quiet, observant man whose girlfriend, Juliet Miller (Kerry Fox), a doctor, seems to be just about the same. In reality, though, she’s just a refined and slightly mature version of Alex. The opening of the film finds the three looking for a fourth flat mate. This search reveals our central heroes to be anything but: They’re rude and narcissistic (like Alex, only the other two are more, well, refined) hipsters who reject anyone who doesn’t fit their ultra cool guidelines. Eventually, the three find a worthy candidate in the form of Hugo (Keith Allen), a balding man who’s just about as hip and cool as they are, and even more so refined than Juliet and David. However, the corpse and money come into the story when, a day after Hugo moves in, his drug-overdosed naked corpse is found sprawled across his bed, with the suitcase underneath for a curious Alex to uncover. Faced with this situation, the three do what any normal person in this situation would do: They drag Hugo’s corpse into the forest, dig him a grave (a shallow one at that. Get it? A shallow grave? Uh, yeah); hack of his hands, feet, and teeth (darned dental records) in order to burn them later; and then run off with the money. But, what do you do with a suitcase full of money, a missing guy, and the people who are looking for them?

If you happen to be an Ewan McGregor fan, much like myself, who has made the horrible mistake of watching Nightwatch, Shallow Grave would be a worthy anecdote. While the plot to Shallow Grave may sound more like A Simple Plan, both Nightwatch and Shallow Grave share many of the same aspects and flaws. Both are clichéd, by-the-numbers suspense thrillers, both have shallow and annoying characters, both are predictable, and both star Ewan McGregor. Why, then, is Shallow Grave a more affective thriller than Nightwatch? Nightwatch ultimately failed because its plot required character sympathy, when the characters clearly were not sympathetic. Its central character, Martin, was just as much as a hipster brat as his psychotic friend James was. When James made crude jokes, Martin was right there laughing with him. How is the audience going to sympathize with someone who’s as shallow as an empty pool and as sympathetic as a foul odor? When Martin and co were being chased after by the killer at the end, I’m quite sure many who watched it were hoping that they’d get killed off. With Shallow Grave, there is no sympathy required. The film actually critiques the characters, not painting them as innocents who fell into an unfortunate situation, and does so right up to the end, where all three scurry around in a gruesomely violent and darkly comic struggle over the money. Also, Shallow Grave takes the time to actually let the audience get to know the characters, so that we have a better understanding of some of the plot developments, even though some developments were not explained very well (especially David’s transformation from a refined hipster to a homicidal, guilt-ridden psychotic who lives in the flat attic). Nightwatch only took the time to show us just how crazy James was. Thazaboutit.

One huge redeeming factor for Shallow Grave’s predictability is the wit and cleverness of its script, making it a more effective black comedy than suspense thriller (though it does turn out to be quite an effective thriller as well). I have always seen the term "wickedly funny" used to describe many foreign comedy/comedy-like films, like Strictly Ballroom for example, but have never exactly seen anything that quite lives up to this term. Shallow Grave does, with its sardonic mocking of characters, including its own central characters. This comedy is played to perfection by McGregor, whose extremely juvenile character delivers many of the film’s most hilarious lines.

Acting wise, McGregor is not the only bright light in this film. Christopher Eccleston gives a superbly underplayed performance as David, making his otherwise nerdy character a more intimidating presence as the film goes on. Kerry Fox, while not as good as her other two male co-stars, manages to give a good performance as the femme fatale Juliet. Who is the best of the three is difficult to chose, and perhaps my obvious bias might give McGregor the edge over Eccleston, but McGregor’s overacting tends to get a bit annoying and unconvincing at times. Eccleston, then, gets top honors as being the best for masterfully playing his character without under doing or overdoing it to the point of extremes.

Danny Boyle’s direction is good, but, expectedly, it has flaws. Like many first-time directors, it’s the visuals that kill Boyle. The film is cluttered with overloaded imagery, much of which tend to be annoying and have no true purpose in the film. There is, of course, the required and redundant use of the color red through out this film (must every suspense thriller use red to signify blood and death? Has anyone watched Vertigo fer cryin’ out loud?). It was obvious that he was trying a bit too hard to tell the story visually, much like Hitchcock who was an obvious influence on this film. However, it is nice to see Boyle playing around with visuals, a nice set-up to some of the amazing visuals that would be displayed in his next film, Trainspotting.

Shallow Grave is not perfect, obviously. The score is simply horrific, a failed attempt at trying to be spooky and creepy. The subplot of people looking for Hugo should have been left out completely, and instead should have just focused on the three main characters, since Shallow Grave works best as a character study. The tension rising between the three friends was much more suspenseful than the impending danger of the two men looking for Hugo, even if the resolution to the two men’s story helped add another detail to David’s character. Shallow Grave succeeds, though, on its wit, performances, and direction.

© Vert A Go Go Reviews 2001