Voices From a Locked Room

Saw the little seen film Voices from a Locked Room last night. I understand the movie is not completely true to the life its subject(s) Philip Heseltine/Peter Warlock. As a film about living on the edge of sanity and as a showcase for the just emerging from stage to screen Jeremy Northam, it is a tour de force. Jeremy did this film in 1994, I think. Before the 'Net and Emma brought him to American audiences. Up until this point, he was mostly known as a stage actor for the RSC and National Theatres, having won an Olivier (Britain's equivalent of the Tony) for his performance in The Voysey Inheritance a couple of years previous.

Jeremy is nothing short of brilliant in this film, playing the music critic Philip Heseltine and his alter ego the composer Peter Warlock. Particularly in the scenes as Warlock, Jeremy exposes the raw edge that Peter dwells upon. Jeremy's Peter Warlock is a man of great sensitivity and musical genius. A shy and withdrawn man whose love for a woman cause him to lose the delicate balance he maintains between sanity and madness. For Peter's other self is Philip Heseltine, a harsh critic on the London music scene, who has fallen in love as well, and with the same woman. The inevitable crashing together of these two halves of the same man create the dramatic tension in the film.

The film doesn't entirely work on every level, yet there is something incredibly compelling in Jeremy's performance as Philip/Peter slide into depths of torment. Maybe it's the purity of joy and concentration when as Warlock, he plays his newly composed nocturne in a duet with the woman he loves, a singer. It is known that Jeremy Northam is a musician himself. The very modest Jeremy Northam would probably be the first to deny this claim, yet his musicianship was clear in the 2002 film Gosford Park, where he played piano and sang Ivor Novello's wonderful musica hall tunes. The musician in Jeremy is so purely expressed as Warlock that it is beautiful to behold. I do not know for certain whether that is Jeremy actually playing Warlocks pieces, including the duet, it certainly looks like he's playing and not just play-acting, but who knows.

Anyway, try to catch the film on Starz Cinema if you get digital cable or satelite. It's a difficult film at times, but Jeremy Northam's performance is beautiful to behold. Some photographs from the movie to entice you.