Remainder, film review: Gorgeous Tom Sturridge and a case of comedy gold

Tom Sturridge floats through this high-concept noir like a waterlily. He’s gorgeous, though hardly an object of desire, because his character (a Londoner involved in a mysterious accident, haunted by memories/hallucinations that he seeks to render solid) is something of a Lord Snooty. But that’s all part of the fun.

Director Omer Fast, working from Tom McCarthy’s cult novel, is not going for conventional character arcs. No one in this story evolves and it’s actually funny how little empathy is on display. A cruel discussion about cats (who turn out not to have nine lives) is comedy gold.

Given the low budget it’s impressive that the worlds inhabited by our anti-hero are so convincing. The sets and discombobulating edits will remind you of Christopher Nolan’s Memento and Inception and/or Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York. Meanwhile, when Sturridge starts auditioning proles to act out his fantasies, the stockinged faces make Hitchcock’s Spellbound spring to mind.

The film’s secret weapon is implacable Asian fixer Naz (Arsher Ali). Race, wealth, mental illness and sex; a third-act bank robbery imagines our capital city at its most fluid. Depending on who you identify with that’s a recipe for poetry or purgatory. Either way, you won’t forget Remainder in a hurry.

Cert 15, 101 mins

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