The Trouble with Jessica: A Limply Familiar British Suicide Farce

Applying gallows humor toward the topic of suicide is a tricky proposition for a film, because no matter a writer’s apparent belief in their status as an irreverent, perceptive satirist of the human condition, suicide simply isn’t like other forms of death from both an emotional and social standpoint. Where an accidental death, or even an impulsive murder, might be easier to use as morbid illustrations of the fragility of life in a blunt, uncaring universe where the improbable is ever moments away from shattering our illusions of security, suicide has an intentionality inherent to it that begs for some kind of introspection. When a character commits suicide, it’s human for us to desire to understand the stark choice that was made. That isn’t to say a filmmaker needs to spell it out for us–it’s a universal human experience to feel pain or frustration at the lack of an explanation for why something tragic has happened. But that filmmaker should probably at least display some curiosity or empathy of their own, and this is the standard that The Trouble with Jessica struggles to address. Writer-director Matt Winn’s tragicomedy farce revolves around the consequences of an ill-timed death, but he’s so busy intermingling with his reprehensible characters that the film never spares much interest or empathy for the woman in its title, nor finds a coherent or incisive message in its social commentary, beyond “These folks sure are assholes, huh?”

That asshole-centric thesis puts The Trouble with Jessica in conversation with so many films, from both the U.S. and U.K., about the insufferability of the well-to-do upper middle class: Here a quartet (and briefly a quintet) of upper crust, posh Londoners with liberal overtones–the opening moments see parents Sarah (Shirley Henderson) and Tom (Alan Tudyk) expressing their disappointment that a teenage son has become an evangelical Christian, mentioning that perhaps when he’s away at college he’ll be bored and “become an anarchist,” this being implied as a more desirable alternative, or one less likely to offend the wine night social circle. They’re hosting a dinner party with closest friends/married couple Richard (Rufus Sewell) and Beth (Olivia Williams), but things have been complicated by the last-minute inclusion of additional college friend Jessica (Indira Varma), a successful memoirist and wild child who is the resident troublemaker of the social circle. This is particularly irksome to Sarah, who has never appreciated Jessica’s constant flirtation with both Tom and Richard, and was hoping for a quiet night with friends to commemorate the fact that they’re being forced to immediately sell their beautiful London home in order to stave off debts incurred by dreamer Tom’s overleveraged architecture projects. Sarah already expects Jessica to find a way to make the night all about herself; she doesn’t quite expect Jessica to do it by hanging herself in their garden right before the dessert course.

That’s exactly how it goes down, and it’s not a spoiler to note it: The whole film revolves around the fact that in the middle of a testy argument/confrontation at dinner, Jessica storms off without a word, seemingly to collect herself but in reality to kill herself, which the other four characters discover not long afterward. Of the four, the sanctimonious Beth is the only one who is immediately struck by genuinely empathetic emotion at the death. Sarah, on the other hand, spots a problem: If they call the police, she fears that the buyer about to close on their home will pull out of the sale, which will lead to Sarah and Tom’s financial ruin. With alacrity and ruthless pragmatism, she concludes that the only thing to do would be to move Jessica’s body, transporting it back to her own home, so the suicide can be discovered elsewhere and not ruin their deal. Richard and Beth, unsurprisingly, want nothing to do with this plan and the risks it would represent to their own livelihoods. But ah, perhaps there are levers that can be used to move them? Perhaps the intimacy that is compiled in a long friendship can now become a weapon in the assertive Sarah’s hands, driven by desperation? Henderson takes the reins to drive the plot forward from here, her performance casting the character as simultaneously brittle and iron rigid. Before long, they’re schlepping the corpse around to hide it from various intruders, whether it’s nosy neighbors, police inspectors, or the deep-pocketed, suspicious buyer (Sylvester Groth) who shows up with no warning, wanting to see the home he’s buying.

This central slice of The Trouble with Jessica is meant to read as a chaotic farce, balancing the evolving grievances and frayed emotional states of the core four characters against the ever-present threat of discovery in their macabre business. The hijinks, however, have a tendency to fall flat, the humor straining against improbable situations that are largely undersold by the cast. It feels like a project that was designed to be a more bombastic, one act stage play, and even at less than 90 minutes here it can feel like we’re stalling for time. Particularly when Winn attempts to push things in more ribald and risque directions, it all feels rather hollow. Even the jazz-centric score seems miscalculated, feeling distractingly intrusive at times as it barges into conversations like a fifth wheel.