Savage House (15)

Malodorous aristocrat Sir Chauncey Savage and wife Lady Savage are festering pustules on the bottom of upper-class society. The couple are forced to sell off her family jewels to keep debtors at bay while Sir Chauncey swindles friends and acquaintances. Fate smiles through a grimace when an ill-timed outbreak of pox forces the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire to seek alternative lodgings for a night during their regional tour. The nobles choose the Savages.

LondonNet Film Review

Savage House (15) Film Review from LondonNet

The peasants are revolting but it’s the gluttonous aristocrats who stink – blame a gangrenous wound – in writer-director Peter Glanz’s scabrous comedy of errors set in the powdered bosom of 18th-century England. Cast in the mould of Oscar-winning period romp The Favourite, Savage House repeatedly bares its discoloured teeth then fails to bite down hard and draw blood to vividly depict the moral decay of a privileged class as a Jacobite uprising threatens to upend the pecking order…

Malodorous aristocrat Sir Chauncey Savage (Richard E Grant) and wife Lady Savage (Claire Foy) are festering pustules on the bottom of upper-class society, shunned by almost everyone with power and influence. The couple are forced to sell off her family jewels to keep debtors at bay while Sir Chauncey swindles friends and acquaintances, who are partial to gambling, with his loaded dice. Manservant Reginald Halifax (Jack Farthing) and housemaid Dorothy Neville (Bel Powley) begrudgingly do attend to the whims of their master and mistress but secretly plot an untimely demise for Sir Chauncey using poison to elevate their stations without arousing suspicion.

Fate smiles at the Savages and their daughter Fanny (Kila Lord Cassidy) through a grimace when an ill-timed outbreak of pox forces the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire to seek alternative lodgings for a night during their regional tour. The nobles choose the insufferable, social-climbing spouses as their new hosts. Buoyed by the prospect of bona fide titled guests under their roof, Sir Chauncey hires two inexperienced footmen, Leslie (Tom Godwin) and Darby (Tony Way), and pressures existing staff to pull out all the stops – on a budget – to impress the Duke and Duchess. “Let’s be our very best!” Lady Savage encourages staff during a pep talk. Alas, the master’s ailing health and a solar eclipse coincide with the Devonshires’ eagerly anticipated arrival.

Bookmarked into seven increasingly grim chapters, Savage House settles comfortably between a bile-slathered satire and period farce, offering tantalising glimpses of what might have been if Glanz’s script had careened uncontrollably in one direction with unruly or mean-spirited abandon rather than trundling along a path of least resistance. Pungent production design and suitably weathered costumes convey the disrepair (and eventual squalor) of the house of Savage and its odious occupants. Grant is clearly having a blast nudging his extravagantly wigged scoundrel to the brink of a nervous breakdown while Foy plays the straightwoman to his outbursts including myriad tantrums at the dinner table.

A droll narrator (Robert Bathurst) delivers choice epithets about the central couple’s delicious downfall, like when Sir Chauncey’s physical disposition is likened to an undercooked souffle. “He was collapsing into himself,” quips the narrator with lip-smacking delight. Solid work from the leads and impressive technical credits help Glanz’s film to avoid a similar implosion.

– Sarah Lee