Movie Review: MAGPIE

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: October 25th, 2024 / 01:22 AM

MAGPIE movie poster | ©2024 Shout! Sudios

Rating: R
Stars: Daisy Ridley, Shazad Latif, Matilda Lutz, Hiba Ahmed, Cherrelle Skeete, Pippa Bennett-Warner, Alistair Petrie
Writer: Tom Bateman, based on an original idea by Daisy Ridley
Director: Sam Yates
Distributor: Shout! Studios
Release Date: October 25, 2024

As MAGPIE begins, Anette (Daisy Ridley) is videotaping her little daughter Matilda’s (Hiba Ahmed) audition for a big-budget movie. Great news: Matilda gets the part. Momentarily, Matilda, Anette and Anette’s husband/Matilda’s dad Ben (Shazad Latif) couldn’t be happier.

The family, plus baby boy Lucas, lives in a spacious modern house in the English countryside. Ben is a successful author. Anette would like to get back to her publishing industry career, which she put on hold for motherhood.

Before production has even begun, Anette and Ben find an online video that is circulating. It’s a sex tape, made by an ex-boyfriend of actress Alicia (Matilda Lutz), who is going to be playing the mother of Matilda’s character.

Anette feels sorry for Alicia’s public humiliation. Ben expresses sympathy for Alicia – and then starts researching her.

If we have any doubts about Ben being a cad, these are erased when he races off with Matilda to the set after having canceled the babysitter. Anette is thereby forced to take crying baby Lucas with her on her lunch meeting – her first job prospect in years – with her old boss (Alistair Petrie).

The film Matilda has been cast in is a period costume drama. The little girl is initially intimidated by the noise, the lights and all the strangers, but Alicia puts the child at ease. Matilda adores her new friend. Ben and Alicia hit it off, too; he’s delighted when she says she knows who he is and that she’s read one of his books.

Ben insists on being the parent who accompanies Matilda to filming every day. Anette feels understandably suspicious.

Tension builds by increments. We know that Anette has suffered from depression, and we wonder what form her reaction will take. We also wonder about Alicia’s actions, which become clear at the climax.

Per the credits, MAGPIE is based on an idea by Ridley, scripted by Tom Bateman and directed by Sam Yates. Ridley has created an excellent role for herself, which she plays with emotional power and subtlety. Lutz is genuinely appealing as Alicia, and Ahmed is winning as little Matilda.

As for Latif, he manages against the odds to make us at least feel some pity for Ben’s yearning for something more, even as he adroitly illustrates the character’s scummier aspects.

Director Yates shows skill at staging scenes in low light without loss of visibility, establishing a look that is both elegant and forlorn.

For much of MAGPIE, it unspools as a well-observed domestic drama about a marriage in crisis. The filmmakers and cast are adroit at showing the micro-strains within the relationship that exist even without the Alicia factor. Its success doesn’t even depend on when or whether we notice what’s happening under the surface. It is modest, but it works very well.\\

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A quiet British domestic thriller

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Article: Movie Review: MAGPIE

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