Hotel Splendide
UK/France 1999
Reviewed by Charlotte O'Sullivan
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Perched on an island, the methane-generated Hotel Splendide caters to a motley crew of guests. Mrs Blanche, the driving force behind the hotel, has just died, leaving her son, Dezmond, in charge. The rest of the family - father Morton, brother Ronald and sister Cora - simply follow orders, supplying the guests with bland, constipating food.
Kath, an old flame of Ronald's, turns up after receiving a note begging her to come to the island. Stuck there until the next ship comes in, Kath starts providing different food for the clientele. To Dezmond's disgust, she also tries to fix Cora up with one of the guests, Sergei. In revenge, Dezmond taunts Cora into killing herself. Meanwhile, Stan, a young boy terrified of water, attempts to escape.
Their bowels loosened by Kath's cooking, guests are generating too much methane, sending Mrs Blanche's system into chaos. Ronald and Kath - now a couple - descend into the cellars of the hotel where they discover the mother's secret: a den, full of rich food. Ronald and Kath use these provisions to make a cake, which they feed into the generator. Just before the hotel explodes, they board a waiting ship, although Dezmond stays.
Review
Terence Gross' feature debut Hotel Splendide obviously fancies itself as a comic satire along the lines of Delicatessen or Brazil. Featuring a repressive matriarch who enslaves people through the food she feeds them and a sensual punk princess who breaks her spell, its story of demoralised island dwellers forced to claim the future seems designed to rally British viewers still reeling from the Thatcher years. Set in the eponymous Hotel Spendide - run by said matriarch Mrs Blanche, then, when she dies, by her son Dezmond - the film is a riot of special effects and colours, with clammy greens and dead-dolphin blues gradually giving way to explosive yellows. Gross' aim, clearly, is to drag the feelgood label away from naturalistic, Full Monty-style settings and into the landscape of dreams.
Unfortunately, Gross' script feels less like a dream, more a bad television sitcom. Mrs Blanche is the softest of targets - dominant women are invariably played as bitches and that's how it is here. In the same way, Dezmond is the archetypal mummy's boy: repellent and comic. The weak father Morton, meanwhile, becomes admirable only when he stands up for himself, and as for the 'good', rebellious son Ronald, he's a nondescript character whose chief virtue is that he's not as damaged as his siblings.
Kath, Ronald's ex-flame, is also short on surprises. As soon as you see that I'm-a-genuine-person smile, you know she's a female rescuer made from the same stuff as Maria in The Sound of Music, the sort of woman who can turn a family around with a blend of no-nonsense competence and breathless encouragement.
There are a few signs of life. As Cora, Mrs Blanche's daughter, and hotel guest Sergei, Katrin Cartlidge and Joerg Stadler make a wonderfully shy pair of lovers, with brown, night-creature eyes and pale skins vying for vampiric intensity. There's a repressed violence in both - an inability to escape the allure of power (or powerlessness) - that makes them far more interesting than any of the film's other good guys. Stadler has something unreadable about his face that makes his character's admission that he sent saviour Kath the note begging her to come to the hotel far from soppy. In the same way, Cora's declaration that she's "ugly and deformed - down there" is much more than pitiful. The mother told her this, and healthy Kath refuses to believe it. But Cora's crunched, rigid hands look as if they've administered all sorts of self-abuse. This jokey film can hardly take the weight of Cora's death, but thanks to Cartlidge's performance, her suicide feels credible. You can almost hear the demons whispering in Cora's ear; as with the troubled characters Cartlidge played in Naked and Claire Dolan, no other voices are powerful enough to get through.
But such subtlety is all too rare. Stan, the young guest terrified of water, can perhaps be seen as a symbol of all that's wrong with Hotel Splendide. As played by Hugh O'Conor, his accent keeps slipping, making the whole project seem rootless. And yet he has so much potential. One of the final shots sees Stan jumping into the sea, penis flying. It actually looks like something from a dream and beats The Full Monty's climax hands down. You're left thinking that Gross' next film will be the one to watch.
Credits
- Director
- Terence Gross
- Producer
- Ildikó Kemény
- Screenplay
- Terence Gross
- Director of Photography
- Gyula Pados
- Editor
- Michael Ellis
- Production Designer
- Alison Dominitz
- Music
- Mark Tschanz
- ©Renegade Films and TOC Films
- Production Companies
- FilmFour & TOC Films present a Renegade Films production
- A Renegade Films production for TOC Films and FilmFour
- Developed in association with Decameron Films Ltd/ACE - Ateliers du
- Cinéma Européenne and with the assistance of The European Production Fund
- Limited
- Executive Producer
- Robert Buckler
- Co-executive Producer
- Charles Gassot
- Line Producer
- Guy Tannahill
- Associate Producers
- Amanda McKenzie Stuart
- Mark Frith
- Production Co-ordinator
- Lisa Parker
- Location Manager
- Northern Ireland Crew:
- Colm Nolan
- Post-production
- Co-ordinator:
- Christel Franken
- Supervisor:
- Stephen Barker
- Production Consultant
- Colin Vaines
- Creative Consultant
- Cameron Thor
- Assistant Directors
- Max Keene
- Matt Baker
- Joe Geary
- Script Supervisor
- Janice Schumm
- Casting
- Director:
- Lucinda Syson
- Preliminary:
- Priscilla John
- Steadicam Operator
- Northern Ireland Crew:
- Peter Robertson
- Visual Effects Company
- Peerless Camera Company Ltd.
- Special Effects Company
- Special Effects UK Ltd
- Model Makers - Seagulls
- Tim Dickel
- Phillipa Haynes
- Art Directors
- Christina Moore
- Northern Ireland Crew:
- Terry Loane
- Set Decorator
- Clare Clarkson
- Draughtsman
- James Foster
- Scenic Artist/Storyboard
- Thomasina Smith
- Scenic Artist
- Northern Ireland Crew:
- Beverly Cutting
- Costume Designer
- Michelle Pernetta
- Make-up/Hair Designer
- Christine Allsopp
- Make-up/Hair Artists
- Rupert Simon
- Tony Lilley
- Chief Hairdresser
- Jon Henry Gordon
- Title Design
- Kemistry
- Musicians
- Ukulele:
- George Hinchcliffe
- Violinists:
- Julian Milone
- Cara Vella
- Violincelli:
- Tony Hinnigan
- Steve Anstey
- Flugelhorn/Trumpet:
- Guy Barker
- Vocals:
- Sarah Leonard
- Music Recording
Engineer/Mixer - Mark Wyllie
- Choreography
- Bruno Tonioli
- Sound Mixer
- John Taylor
- Re-recording Mixer
- Mike Prestwood-Smith
- Supervising Sound Editor
- Chris Ackland
- Dialogue Editor
- Gillian Dodders
- ADR
- Recordists:
- Robert Farr
- Andy Thompson
- Foley
- Artists:
- Ellen Heuer
- Paula Boram
- Mixer:
- Kevin Tayler
- Stunt Co-ordinators
- Andy Bradford
- Ray De Haan
- Nrindar Dhudwar
- Cast
- Toni Collette
- Kath
- Daniel Craig
- Ronald Blanche
- Katrin Cartlidge
- Cora Blanche
- Stephen Tompkinson
- Dezmond Blanche
- Hugh O'Conor
- Stanley Smith
- Helen McCrory
- Lorna Bull
- Peter Vaughan
- Morton Blanche
- Joerg Stadler
- Sergei Gorgomov
- Clare Cathcart
- Lorraine Bull
- John Boswall
- bellboy
- Toby Jones
- kitchen boy
- Dan Hildebrand
- waiter
- Nadine Leonard
- chambermaid
- Len Hibberd
- fisherman
- Imogen Claire
- image/voice of Mrs Blanche
- Certificate
- 15
- Distributor
- Film Four Distributors
- 8,838 feet
- 98 minutes 12 seconds
- Dolby Digital
- Colour/Prints by
- DeLuxe