Movie review: Filth & Wisdom

by John P. Meyer

Madonna's first directorial effort is a heavy-handed yet frequently charming picaresque.

As a director of narrative film dramas, Madonna's not showing us much with her debut feature, Filth and Wisdom. It's basically a patched-together pastiche of eccentric character vignettes centering on a Ukrainian expat and would-be rock musician named A.K. (Eugene Hutz, the real-life Ukrainian expat frontman of Gogol Bordello).

That's not to say you shouldn't go out and see it. In fact, I've got to say the 82-minute experience turns out to be a genuine hoot, thanks primarily to the oddball ramblings and homespun Kiev homilies dished up in generous quantity by that selfsame charismatic raconteur and performance artist.

The story takes place in London, where three flatmates (A.K., Juliette and Holly) struggle to make ends meet in the dog-eat-dog world that requires them to pay rent and buy groceries while they work to advance their artistic and/or philanthropic interests.

Juliette (Vicky McClure) works as a chemist's assistant at a shop run by Sardeep (Inder Manocha), who - though married and encumbered with a pack of children, nevertheless lusts after his lithe and youthful co-worker in covert fashion, sniffing her overcoat in the privacy of the back room while she delivers prescriptions to clientele and simultaneously begs donations for her cause of choice: starving children in Africa.

For her part, Juliette routinely ferrets away vials of pills in her pockets and spirits them away to her home medicine cabinet.

Holly (Holly Weston), meanwhile, pursues a passion for ballet by taking instruction in a practice facility shared uncomfortably by humans and arthropods - as evidenced by her dispatching of a vile waterbug with a handy pointe shoe. To make her share of the rent - opportunities for lucrative ballet assignments being scarce - she takes the advice of A.K. and auditions for an exotic dancing gig at a gentleman's club called Beechman's.

Holly receives pole dancing lessons (YOWZA!) from veteran stripper Francine (Francesca Kingdon), who also lets her in on the three rules of the club: 1) Japanese men tip best; 2) what happens in the club, stays in the club; and 3) stay away from teenagers - they have no money.

A.K. - who delivers the film's manifesto by stating "to get into heaven you've gotta start in Hell" - supports his rock music performance habit by contracting out as a master-for-hire, indulging the submissive whims of a masochistic male clientele by dressing up in vintage military regalia and wielding a wicked whip. (And a wicked tongue - figuratively, that is.)

While delivering his frequent monologues, A.K. lounges in the bathtub - variously water-filled and empty. Either the sofa is uncomfortably sprung, or he appreciates the bathroom for sake of its privacy coefficient. (Or maybe it's the acoustics.)

Elsewhere in the building resides a poet and retired college professor named Flynn (Richard E. Grant). Professor Flynn lives in an interior space populated by literature and ideas; he's becoming increasingly blind, yet continues to revels in the proximity of his beloved books - which he removes from their shelves periodically to sensuously sniff. (Can't get that from a Kindle.)

A.K. has befriended the professor, delivering groceries and lending a sympathetic ear - though lately Flynn has taken to testing the boundaries of their friendship by making unsubtle overtures of a physical nature. (Which A.K. vigorously rebuffs.)

Where Madonna's directorial talents truly shine are during the several embedded music video segments, including one featuring Gogol Bordello's "Wunderlust King." The energy and creativity evident in these interludes do much to counteract the rough cut exposition typical of the bulk of the narrative.

By the end of this morally heavy-handed yet frequently charming picaresque, all the characters reach some sort of resolution by means of fortuitously-delivered envelopes containing the pots of gold at the ends of their various rainbows.