The Merry Gentleman

It has hardly been a vintage year for Christmas movies so far (click here and here to read our respective reviews of Nativity! and A Christmas Carol). But Michael Keaton's absorbing first film as director, in which he also stars, finally nails the true spirit of the festive season: it is about a suicidal hitman.

For the benefit of the five people still reading, seasonal goodwill is compounded when the killer encounters a sweet young women fleeing an abusive marriage (she is played by Kelly Macdonald to whom the film properly belongs). It starts when, out on a job, he spots her through the crosshairs of his rifle from his perch high on a rooftop. He, having successfully despatched his victim, is about to despatch himself. She is standing in a doorway, arms outstretched, exulting in the first snowfall of the holidays. She looks up and sees him; they lock eyes.

A police investigation begins with Macdonald as the key witness. Keaton engineers a meeting and you surmise that the intention is to take her out. Things turn out differently though and, in fits and starts, a tentative, unlikely relationship develops. Meanwhile one of the policemen (very well-played by Tom Bastounes, who also produces) is taken too by the shy, radiant young woman.

Set in a luminous, snowy Chicago, the film sounds cliched in outline, but is in fact hard to pin down: part murder thriller, part (but only a very small part) romance and above all a minutely observed mood piece about the chasms between people. Has it been mentioned that it is also a very dark comedy? The shape-shifting screenplay, by a relative newcomer, Ron Lazzeretti, is out of the top drawer.

But the big surprise is Keaton's elegant, low-key direction. The actor is famed for the ultimate action hero, Batman, and for manic motormouths such as Billy Blaze in Night Shift, the 1982 comedy that made his name, or the title character in Beetlejuice (latterly, he has been much in demand for voice-over work in movies like Cars). Here he tells a tale of silence and stillness, taking the time to savour the small moments and knowing when to move on without squeezing the last drop out of a mystery. This melancholy, hauntingly beautiful film won't be at the top of everyone's Christmas wish list but those who see it will find that, unlike most of the jollier fare around, it won't have evaporated from memory come Boxing Day.

Official website