There has been a rise lately of films about how the poor and dispossessed should rise up against the rich and, in varying degrees, ruin their lives. Glass Onion, The Menu and Triangle of Sadness have all done this in different ways but in black comedy Coup! We get one that feels more akin to a Buggs Bunny cartoon.
Writer-director duo Austin Stark and Joseph Schuman set the table nicely, it's 1918 and while a war rages, Spanish Flu has begun to decimate the US. Wealthy writer Jay Horton (Billy Magnussen) writes passionately as if he were a member of the working class while relying entirely on his house staff. Into this idyllic isolated life comes new chef Monk (Peter Sarsgaard) who might not be what he seems and who has some very specific ideas on society.
Stark, director of thoughtful medical drama The God Committee, and his co-director make the register of the film clear from the off. With help from a fantastic score by Nathan Halpern the blackly comic tone is put front and centre so that when we hear the rousing pieces that writer Horton puts out into the world, disparaging the establishment from his comfy estate we know that games are afoot.
Sarsgaard is endlessly watchable on screen and as the southern-drawled Floyd Monk we have a fantastic vehicle for his charmingly silly ability. Monk slowly gains the respect of fellow staff members Mrs Tidwell (Skye P. Marshall) and Kaan (Faran Tahir), and works his magic on the Horton family too, not least Jay's wife Julie (Sarah Gadon).
The cast are all uniformly great, never over playing the comedy of the film, but allowing the growing exasperation of Horton to be underlined by a sense that he is seeing things no one else is. For his work Magnussen is fantastic too. He threatens to steal the film as the tightly wound liberal writer who isn't as liberal as he seems, with his no meat rule and pipe smoke. The push-and-pull between Sarsgaard and Magnussen feels like watching a live action Buggs Bunny episode with Magnussen channelling the ever maddening anger of Elmer Fudd.
Stark and Schuman never overplay the period setting, instead they allow the not-too-outdated fashion and the isolated setting to commend on a situation we are still dealing with. This is very much about the pandemic we just survived, and how the rich were sheltered and the poor were exploited even by those that claimed they cared. It's not hard to picture Horton being one of the celebrities who readily sang Imagine in that hilariously mis-judged video.
The film's tone might not be for everyone, certainly it's got a farcical feel to it, not least in some slapstick comedy and the film's third act but this is part of it's charm. It's inviting us to laugh at the elite who claim they care but actually perpetuate the same cycles they rally against, soothing their souls with words not action. While unlikely to win anyone who doesn't already have a staunch eat-the-rich policy already, what this does do is provide an enjoyable time watching someone slowly unravel thanks to the calm, but sinister, presence of another.
Coup! is available to download from 3rd September
