The Trouble With Jessica Review

British black comedy The Trouble With Jessica invites us to the dinner party from hell

From Weekend at Bernie’s to Fawlty Towers, Don’t Tell Mom The Babysitter’s Dead back to Hitchcock’s The Trouble With Harry; capers with corpses have always proved surprisingly fertile ground for black comedies. Matt Winn’s second feature The Trouble with Jessica is the latest in a long line of stories where the death of a titular character sends everyone around them spiralling, with hilarious consequences.

High flying professional couple Sarah (Shirley Henderson) and Tom (Alan Tudyk) have found themselves in financial dire straits, with the impending sale of their beautiful North London home the only thing that can save them from ruin. They invite their closest friends Richard (Rufus Sewell) and Beth (Olivia Williams) round for one final dinner party before saying goodbye to the house, but are surprised when the couple bring along third guest Jessica (Indira Varma.)

Jessica is a chaotic whirlwind of a figure; a celebrated but troubled author whose wild and free life is a stark contrast to that of the two couples, old university friends who have long since settled down. After a petty argument blows up, Jessica goes out into the garden and hangs herself. While the dinner party is initially shocked at her death, Tom and Sarah quickly come to the rather insensitive realisation that a suicide on the premises could ruin the sale of their house – and enlist Richard and Beth in helping them to cover it up.

It’s a slick and snappy script from Winn and co-writer James Handel, played with absolute gusto by the quartet of seasoned theatre actors, nearly all of whom you’ll have seen in projects together before. The single location nature of the setting (nearly all of the action takes place in Tom and Sarah’s house) gives it a particularly theatrical feeling, yet the cinematography and scoring allow the story to transcend the physical limitations of the setting to create something that manages to feel fresh and fleet despite tracing well-trodden ground.

The four leads are simply sensational, managing to riff off each other in a way that feels completely natural and improvisational. They turn absurdity into grouchy realism in a way that only the best of British comedic actors seem to be capable of. (And yes, I do include Alan Tudyk in this, because after having watching A Knights Tale approximately 100 times when I was a teenager I think I now always subconsciously think he’s British, no matter how absolutely awful his accent in that film was.)

The Trouble with Jessica manages to be well balanced and well-paced ensemble piece, with each of its four central characters being given the time and development to feel like equal leads in the story. As we uncover how they each of them related to Jessica, and the between the two couples are tried and tested, each of the four gets their own massive blowout, breakdown scene. They range from bleak to ridiculous, but Shirley Henderson is the hilarious standout – hearing her spew endless expletives in that wispy affected voice of hers will never not be funny.

Whilst it’s an enjoyable enough romp, the hurdle preventing The Trouble with Jessica from being an absolute slam dunk of a comedy is perhaps that it is, well, frightfully posh. It’s hard to muster any sympathy for these absurd rich people (anyone with these assets is not broke, no matter how much handwringing Tom and Sarah do about their financial situation.) It doesn’t tonally quite pull off satire, and its hard as an audience not to feel completely indifferent to the fate of these characters, who often feel cruel and out of touch.

Still, there’s appeal here in that The Trouble with Jessica feels like Weekend at Bernie’s written by Harold Pinter. A tight 90-minute comedy with enough laughs per minute to leave you with a smile on your face, it’s a witty showcase for its fantastically funny cast.

The Trouble with Jessica is released in UK cinemas on 5th April 2024