The Face of an Angel ***½ (2014, Daniel Brühl, Kate Beckinsale, Cara Delevingne) – Movie Review

Director Michael Winterbottom’s intelligent and involving film takes the real-life Italian murder case of British student Meredith Kercher in 2007 and turns it into a sideways take on events, profitably focusing on a documentary film-maker/screenwriter (Daniel Brühl) and his attempt to adapt the events into the film we’re watching.

This approach will frustrate those looking for a straight telling of the Face of an Angel case, but it has many virtues of its own, notably that it doesn’t intrude on the real people involved in the nightmarish case and its scary Kafka-esque legal aftermath.

So Brühl goes to Siena to research a similar murder case and to London to meet with producers.

Brühl (in a role slated for Colin Firth) is excellent as the story’s hero, thoughtful, tormented  and charming, and Kate Beckinsale (as journalist Simone Ford) and Cara Delevingne (as an English barmaid Brühl encounters) are solid in their characters in support. There’s plenty of Tuscan, legal and journalist atmosphere to give it loads of credibility. It works on several levels, providing a lot of information and food for thought, but it’s good that it works as a real-life thriller too.

Paul Viragh writes a very solid and intriguing screenplay based on the book by Barbie Latza Nadeau.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Movie Review

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com