Olivia Cooke, Douglas Booth, Bill Nighy, Eddie Marsan
Juan Carlos Medina’s (Painless) lurid, violent British horror-thriller – adapted by Jane Goldman (Kick-Ass) from a 1994 murder mystery novel by Peter Ackroyd – stars Olivia Cooke, Bill Nighy, Douglas Booth and Eddie Marsan and is getting excellent early reviews after its screenings at TIFF.
Nighy plays Scotland Yard detective John Kildare, transferred outside of London due to rumour but brought back to uncover a Jack the Ripper-esque figure, the Limehouse ‘Golem’ whose gruesome East End murders have shaken their community. As Kildare investigates suspects including Karl Marx and novelist George Gissing, his path crosses that of music-hall performer Elizabeth (Cooke) and they begin a series of conversations looking back into her past…
Vividly shot – in particular the Golem’s macabre crime scenes – and lit up further by Goldman’s urgent, witty script and the cast’s uniformly terrific performances, it’s both a refreshingly feminist take on a classic genre and an immensely satisfying watch.
This unlikely feminist Jack the Ripper-esque thriller cleverly unpicks late-Victorian London’s social structures
Jordan Hoffman, Guardian ∗∗∗∗