Sometimes, all it takes is pancakes. When you’re Anette (Daisy Ridley), a frustrated, stay-at-home mother of two, even a simple breakfast food can snap your last nerve. Anette’s instability, though, has been building for some time, as Sam Yates’s “Magpie” gradually reveals by way of brief encounters and deceptively casual conversations. There’s nothing offhand, though, about her mounting fury.
A lean, mean revenge thriller that knows exactly what it’s about, “Magpie” has little originality but an invigorating clarity of purpose. Struggling to deal with the isolation of her countryside mansion outside London, Anette feels unsupported by her selfish, controlling husband, Ben (Shazad Latif), a celebrated writer who treats her like the help. Ben’s affections stray even further when the couple’s young daughter (Hiba Ahmed) lands a supporting role in a historical drama whose alluring Italian star (Matilda Lutz) proves too tempting to resist.
A movie about female rage and the imprisoning loneliness of motherhood (Anette’s desperate attempt to reconnect with her former boss is derailed by the screaming infant that Ben has declined to babysit), “Magpie” is flimsy and unsubtle, yet oddly gripping. Scattering small signs of marital trauma — Anette’s newly shorn hair, the way she grimly trashes an uneaten, perfectly cooked dinner — the script (by Ridley’s husband, Tom Bateman) urges us to scrutinize Anette’s eerily menacing composure. Is she dangerous, or just dotty?
We have our answer soon enough. But, until then, the film’s enigmatic mood and chilly visuals perfectly complement Anette’s tightened jawline and frozen smile. The pacing is slow to the point of sluggish, yet Ridley’s performance is so magnetic — and Latif’s so convincingly despicable — that the ending might just make you stand up and cheer.
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