Paranoid (2000)

Cautiously Recommended

UK

Feature Film

Writer/Director: John Duigan

Cinematographer: Slawomir Idziak

Composer: Charlie Mole

Cast: Jessica Alba, Iain Glen, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Ewen Bremner, Kevin Whately, Mischa Barton, Gary Love

An American model, just returned to her London home from a New York fashion show, accompanies her potential new boyfriend to a house party in Devon, which is hosted by a former rock star who uses these little shindigs to drug and sexually abuse all of the young ingénues that he and his former band mates manage to entice there, in Duigan’s strangely alluring but decidedly grubby little thriller, which manages to survive some strange and strained plotting and mixed quality performances, thanks mainly to Idziak’s outstanding, atmospheric photography – though the film is most notable (and admirable) for creating one of cinema’s most unlikely heroes. Iain.Stott