SIFF Review - Skeletons

People packed it in last night for the Harvard Exit screening of Skeletons, a movie about the closet-cleaning, laundry-airing, truth-revealing services of Veridical. Specialists David and Bennett are sent traipsing across the British countryside to relieve clients of their shameful secrets. Ultimately the pair is hired to use The Procedure on a client, Jane, and help find her missing husband of eight years, with the chance of a promotion (and Davis’ secret addiction to memory access) hanging in the balance.

Director Nick Whitfield takes an original idea and plays with ideas of guilt, weakness, shame and growth. The heavy dialect and esoteric Procedure-speak make things hard to follow at times, but the characters are persistently likeable, the comedy is weaved in nicely and the film’s overall message is clear. (Actress Tuppence Middleton is completely beautiful in this movie, so we’re jealous about that.) And Whitfield’s older brother, Simon Whitfield, has composed a score that works well to draw out the film’s dark undertones.

It’s not as tightly packaged or as quick-paced with the subject material as, say, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, but Skeletons is a fun film nonetheless.

Skeletons screens Friday, May 28 at Neptune Theatre, 4:30 p.m.