Chameleon character actor Marsan has a long list of supporting-role credits in big films (Sherlock Holmes; Mission Impossible III) and small (X+Y), which releases here next week.
He came close to a lead role as the volcanically angry driving instructor in Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky but here he is front and centre as South London borough council officer John May, whose job is to track down the relatives of lonely people who have died in his bailiwick.
May is often the only mourner at the funerals he has arranged and for which he writes speculative eulogies, based on their personal effects, for stranger clergymen to read. After 22 years, he's being made redundant.
May's attempt to deal with one unfinished case brings him into contact with Kelly Stoke (Froggatt, who plays Anna Bates in Downton Abbey).
Writer-director Pasolini, a former investment banker who produced The Full Monty, has delivered Marsan a rather overwritten character. The stillness of the title is May's affliction and although the actor delivers a precise and watchful performance, the repeated sequences that depict his arid, faintly obsessive life make the film seem longer than its 92 minutes.
More problematically, some of his actions (tampering with records; removing material from archives) may have good dramatic motives but don't chime with the i-dotting, t-crossing man we have come to know.
Watch: Trailer for Still Life
The film has moments of real beauty, but it's an oddly shaped thing. Froggatt and Buchan (Broadchurch) as May's boss seem to have been choppered in to play stereotypes, and the ending, which flirts with poignant irony before settling for treacly sentiment, is a shocker. But the film rewards a look for the performance of Marsan alone.
Cast: Eddie Marsan, Joanne Froggatt, Andrew Buchan
Director: Uberto Pasolini
Running time: 92 mins
Rating: M (content may disturb)
Verdict: Marsan is sublime though his character is overwritten
- TimeOut