The Limehouse Golem
3 stars
Director: Juan Carlos Medina
Stars: Olivia Cooke, Bill Nighy, Douglas Booth
Duration: 109 mins
Class: 15
KRS Releasing Ltd

A grieving and wronged widow who is the prime suspect in her husband’s death, a colourful music hall performer and an honourable detective-inspector are the protagonists of this dark, broody Victorian murder mystery with a series of gruesome murders at its centre.

The Limehouse Golem’s opening sets the scene, with actor Dan Leno (Douglas Booth), a music hall favourite, appearing on stage in dramatic make-up. Leno is based on a man who really existed, despite the story being fiction, adapted from the novel Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem by Peter Ackroyd.

Leno dramatically narrates the fate of a young woman who was to come to a tragic end to his captive audience. In the meantime, Elizabeth Cree (Olivia Cooke) is facing trial for the murder of her husband John (Sam Reid). Elizabeth’s death at the gallows seems inevitable, until Detective Inspector John Kildare (Bill Nighy) is assigned to the case of the so-called Limehouse Golem, perpetrator of the murders, and finds a connection to Elizabeth that may set her free.

The Limehouse Golem’s script, by Jane Goldman, weaves plenty of threads – primarily Kildare’s dogged determination to do his job, even though he has been set up to fail and be offered as a scapegoat to an increasingly frantic public, the authorities thinking that catching the killer is an impossible task. This in turn leads to numerous red herrings and Kildare’s investigation of myriad different suspects.

In the meantime, various flashbacks to Cree’s life, her tragic beginnings, her life’s dreams to be a performance artist, her meeting and eventual unhappy marriage to the ambitious and calculating playwright John Cree (Sam Reid) set up her side of the story while as all this unfolds, Leno himself becomes entangled in the unfolding events.

These various strands do not all come together quite so neatly, the various twists and turns tending to send the narrative adrift at times; although Kildare’s ultimate conclusions prove to be rather unforeseen.

Full marks to director Juan Carlos Medina for recreating a dark, dank, daunting Victorian London – the polar opposite to the sunny, colourful scenarios witnessed in Victoria & Abdul. With the help of production designer Grant Montgomery, he has captured the underbelly of the city in remarkable detail.

It is dark, rainy and grimy, the place of nightmares, and the muted colours often enhanced with the liberal use of blood. The murders are carried out with awful authenticity as the Golem’s victims face a bloody, brutal death, so butchered that they are barely recognisable. All this contributes to a creepy and unnerving atmosphere that serves the story very well.

Nighy is an actor of subtlety and grace and he brings all that to his role, together with a soupcon of true passion in his efforts to clear Elizabeth’s name and find the killer. Cooke fairs less well – she is a tad one-note, her wide-eyed innocence and desolate acceptance of her fate not convincing enough to illustrate the character’s predicament.

Douglas Booth’s Dan Leno adds literal and emotional colour to the film; the character full of imaginative flights of fancy, his theatrical approach to his art as delightful as his good heart is genuine. Booth hits all the right notes in bringing the performer to vivid life.

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