Crimson Peak, film review: Scaling the heights of gothic romance

Crimson Peak dances around the issues of class, wealth, degenerate desire and the superhuman strength of the oppressed, says Charlotte O'Sullivan, while the opulent costumes and sets explode with colours so rich they deserve a good licking
Love hurts: Tom Hiddleston and Mia Wasikowska
Charlotte O'Sullivan16 October 2015

Us critics are saying two things about Guillermo del Toro’s haunted-house thriller: that it represents a victory of style over substance and will (probably) tank at the box office. They’re half right.

Unlike a host of recent phantasmagorical epics, it’s not based on a literary classic. Nor does it star A-listers (in terms of their international profiles, Mia Wasikowska, Tom Hiddleston and Jessica Chastain are what you might call B+ types). Even the Mexican writer/director himself, adored by cinéastes and geeks (thanks to films such as Pan’s Labyrinth and Pacific Rim), is hardly Mr Big.

The plot, it’s true, has sellable elements. Wasikowska is Edith, an archly imaginative ingénue who, uninterested in high society, allows herself to be whisked off to a strange place where supernatural beings offer advice and she becomes locked in a physical battle with a jealous, charismatically potty female adversary.

In the meantime, opulent costumes and sets explode with colours so rich they deserve a good licking. So far, so Alice in Wonderland (the Tim Burton version, natch). Where Burton’s film keeps the gags coming, however, this project opts for a more tragic, heartfelt tone. It’s about love, and how love hurts.

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1/99

Uh-oh. These days, fans of the gothic romance genre don’t really go in for Victoriana. As demonstrated by the success of the Twilight series and Fifty Shades of Grey, audiences appreciate an angst-ridden hero (corrupted as a youth, dangerously attractive to bookish girls, blah blah blah). But they also want him to own a luxury pad and a flash motor.

Other filmgoers will reject the film because it’s low on scares (true, it is under-scary). There are daft moments, too. (I blushed crimson at the way a batch of phonograph cylinders are used as a smoking gun.)

Nevertheless, Edith is a brilliant character. And the British siblings she falls in with (Hiddleston and Chastain, both on masterful form) are even better. In fact, the way Crimson Peak dances around the issues of class, wealth, degenerate desire and the superhuman strength of the oppressed (one physical assault is breathtakingly violent) would make Mary Shelley smile.

Shelley is one of del Toro’s favourite authors, name-checked early on in the proceedings. Del Toro — somehow neither girly nor blokey — has created a period drama that doesn’t rely on heaving bosoms to register passion. A goth for the 21st century, he finds dead, white females awesome. If you feel the same way, you’re in for a treat.

Cert 15, 119 mins

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