In Fabric **** (2018, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Julian Barratt, Steve Oram, Fatma Mohamed, Jaygann Ayeh, Leo Bill, Hayley Squires) – Movie Review

Writer-director Peter Strickland’s In Fabric is an often hilarious black comedy ghost story about a cursed red dress that comes from an English department store winter sales and passes from person to person, with the strangest, direst of consequences.

By far the best part of the film is the long first section with Marianne Jean-Baptiste as middle-aged bank employee Sheila, who goes to the store and buys the red dress to go on a blind date after reading a personal ad in the paper. Jean-Baptiste is excellent, providing warmth and character, as well as humour, and Fatma Mohamed is brilliant as the store’s exceptionally weird employee who spouts highfallutin nonsense as she sells her the dress.

In Fabric takes a dip when Jean-Baptiste leaves the film, but it’s still naughtily nice and funny. Julian Barratt and Steve Oram get their laughs as the bank bean counters. Jaygann Ayeh is good as Sheila’s cocky son Vince, whom she tries to keep in order, Leo Bill is funny as sad sack Reg, whose stag night involves him wearing the fabled red dress, and Hayley Squires amuses as his feisty bride-to-be Babs.

In Fabric comes from the maker of The Duke of Burgundy (014), so you expect it to be a bit pervy, and it is, but only slightly. There is a particularly pervy bit that leads to an end credit for Mannequin Pubic Hair. It’s the sort of film that makes you a little bit surprised that it is backed by BBC Films or even the BFI Film Fund.

Billed as a horror film, it turns out to be really all about the laughs and not the ghost story. Laughs are good, especially in a film festival where they are relatively rare. Peter Strickland’s In Fabric has got it all sewn up.

It is a nominee as Best Film in the Official Competition at the 2018 London Film Festival.

Also in the cast are Gwendoline Christie, Sidse Babett Knudsen, Caroline Catz and Richard Bremmer.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Movie Review

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