‘Mr. Malcolm’s List’ Review: A Romantic Costume Drama of Deftly Acted Charm
variety.comOwen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic“Mr. Malcolm’s List” has a scrumptious light charm. It’s a Regency romance set in London in 1818, where someone in the film is being fooled at every moment.
The deceptions and symmetries are standard, but this is the kind of movie that rises or falls on whether the actors can carry the duplicity — and the innocence — aloft.
And the actors here are marvelous: tart, stylish, emotionally vibrant, never more knowing than when they’re being duped.The film, directed with an alluring blend of badinage and upper-crust sensuality by Emma Holly Jones, is based on a novel by Suzanne Allain (who wrote the screenplay), which was published in 2020 and designed to be a playful riff on Jane Austen.
Yet it’s funny how big-screen adaptations in the “Masterpiece Theatre” genre can work. “Mr. Malcolm’s List” is Jane Austen Lite, but if you watch, say, the 2005 film version of “Pride and Prejudice,” you could call that “Pride and Prejudice” Lite.
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