Compulsion (2013) - film review

The 2013 Canadian film Compulsion is a re-make, but it has nothing to do with Meyer Levin's famous book of the same name, based on a true crime. Instead, it's a re-make of a South Korean movie called 301,302. I can see why the producers didn't want to use that title, but I have to say this film doesn't make me yearn to see the original. It's an odd piece of work.

I started watching without knowing anything about it other than that it starred Heather Graham and was a thriller. Heather Graham is fine, but I feel I was mis-sold with regard to the 'thriller' description. Compulsion doesn't seem to know what sort of a film it is trying to be. The thrills are few and far between, but there are some moments of sharp comedy and satire, and a few sexy scenes. There are as well one or two dark scenes about the abuse of a young girl which contrast with the very bright photography used in most of the film - these made me feel that the funny segments were lapses in tone.

We are introduced to Graham's character as someone fascinated by cooking, and it's clear at once that she's a little weird. A detective(Joe Mantegna) calls at her flat, and asks questions about a missing female neighbour. Little by little, the truth about the two women's relationship emerges. The neighbour, Saffron (Carrie-Anne Moss) was once a young film star, but is now writing sex advice columns while trying unsuccessfully to revive her acting career. When Graham discovers that her rich boyfriend is having an affair, she finds solace in cooking for Saffron, even though Saffron isn't keen to eat the food she is given.

The film runs for less than an hour and a half. Brevity is usually a plus point in books and movies, in my opinion, and I was glad that Compulsion didn't outstay its welcome. I've read some brutal reviews of it, as well as a few fairly good ones (though I think there's more admiration for the glamorous Graham than the storyline). In fairness, it's a film with some genuinely interesting component parts, but they are thrown together too randomly for Compulsion to rank as anything more than a curiosity.

Compulsion

The Leopold-Loeb case is one of the most famous American crimes. Two students – intelligent, but not as intelligent as they believed themselves to be – abducted and murdered a young man as a Nietzschean ‘experiment’ in committing the perfect crime in 1924. Of course, it was far from perfect. They were duly caught and convicted, but Clarence Darrow’s advocacy saved them from execution. Loeb was murdered by a fellow prisoner, but Leopold was released after 33 years and died in 1971.

The story inspired Patrick Hamilton to write the famous play ‘Rope’, filmed equally famously by Alfred Hitchcock. Meyer Levin based his book and play Compulsion on the story, and I’ve just watched the film of the same title, starring Orson Welles as Darrow, made in 1959. Apparently, Leopold tried to prevent the film’s release, arguing that it breached his privacy. This may be why the characters are named Steiner and Strauss rather than Leopold and Loeb.

Dean Stockwell and Bradford Dillman do a good job as the selfish young men, and convey the gay undercurrents of their relationship reasonably well, given the constraints that existed at the time the film was made. But it has to be said that they are unappealing characters, and although their motivation was fascinating, it is less than fully explored. The abduction and murder of the victim is not shown at al, and I felt that was a structural weakness since the central horror of the story is dealt with at one remove. I do not suggest that the crime should have been depicted graphically – that would also have been a mistake – but to omit it altogether struck me as odd, though it is a reminder that the focus of the film is different from that of most crime-based movies. Further weaknesses are the duo’s attempts to avoid arrest are puerile, and the action is rather slow at times.

However, Welles gives a towering performance as Jonathan Wilk (the Darrow equivalent) and his passionate opposition to capital punishment is so effectively conveyed that it is the highlight of the film and the reason why, more than half a century after it was made, it remains well worth watching to this day.