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Shallow Grave (1994)

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  • Written by marinaraujo on 22.05.2010

    I just realized I quoted a song from the Spice Girls lol It was not intentional :P

    (UK - 1994)

    Directed by Danny Boyle, starring Kerry Fox, Ewan McGregor and Christopher Eccleston as the main characters, Shallow Grave won 11 awards, including UK Empire Awards for Best British Actor (Ewan McGregor), Best British Film and Best British Director.

    The film tells the story of three friends - Juliet (Fox), Alex (McGregor) and David (Eccleston) - who live together in a flat and have a free room for rent. The first minutes of the film show them on a complicated (and very funny) process to select their new flatmate. Questions come from the most commom ("Do you smoke?") to the weirdest you could think of ("If I told you I'm the Antichrist, how would you react?"). Of course 99% of those questions are just for fun and they're not really interested on what people will answer. But then they finally find a very nice guy called Hugo (Keith Allen), a decadent writer, and let him live with them. That's just the begin of their problems.

    When Hugo is found naked and dead at his room, what Alex presumes was a suicide, they discover he was a drug addicted. Juliet tries to call the police, when Alex comes up with his suitcase, filled of money. They understand how much trouble they could get if they told the authorities about the money - and the corpse - and decide to keep them. There's a very nice sequence on this part, where Boyle alternates Hugo's body lying on the bed and the guys are living their "normal" lives - Juliet even says she's getting used to the dead guy on their flat.

    David starts to fell annoyed with the perspective of having a corpse at home and a suitcase filled with money but then again Alex gives the "best" solution: to cut Hugo's arms and legs off (in order to burn them) and destroy his mouth and teeth, and then bury the body. Though he found his idea very smart, Alex doesn't want to do it himself, and they let luck decide who's going to do it.
    That's the second big mistake they made. The one who shreds the body suddenly becomes violent and weird, starts to live in the loft and hides the suitcase.

    Alex is a journalist and, for an irony of the destiny, is selected to investigate the death of Hugo (his grave was just too... shallow and the police finds it) and two other people, who were killed in the loft of the flat - I won't say why and if you want to know you'll need to watch it.

    That makes Alex, David and Juliet feel nervous and decide, each one of them, to run away alone with the money and incriminate the others. One of them is more intellingent, though, and performs one of the most unpredictable film endings I've seen on the last months.

    Shallow Grave is great and doesn't focus on the bloody corpses, but on a very well-built story. If that's what you're looking for - smart suspense with a bit of sarcasm -, do not hesitate to watch it!

Shallow Grave Reviews

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