It is disheartening to note that the UK, once a fine example of providing healthcare to its citizens, is taking a decidedly American tack when it comes to ensuring that His Majesty’s subjects receive the care that they need. Has the less than shining example of what is happening here in the United States, as in bankruptcies, patient dumping, and preventable deaths, failed to make an impression? That’s a question for another day. Meanwhile, Christopher Presswell and Forgács W. András address the current and putative future state of affairs in their country with THE WHIP, a dark and deadpan comedy of political corruption and fevered wish fulfillment.
In it we find Nasty Party MP (fill in the real party name yourself) and cabinet minister Michael Harrington (Tom Knight with a fine mix of weltschmerz and umbrage) suffering the horrors of suddenly developing a conscious when explaining the latest “improvement” his party is proposing to justify further cuts to the National Health. Maybe it’s the jargon-esque, self-cancelling slogan, Putting Ability Back into Disability. Maybe it’s the hostility with which his constituents receive it. Maybe it’s pent-up revulsion for the eponymous Whip, Damian Wilson (Ray Bullock Jnr embodying evil incarnate), a soulless anthropomorphized skink with a startling resemblance to Trump advisor Stephen Miller (make of that what you will). Whatever the cause, it provokes a diatribe of righteous indignation in front of his assistant (Aislinn De’Ath), culminating in the unthinkable: an unshakable decision to vote against his party.
The outburst does not go unnoticed (and punished), leading to the sort of political fairy tale for which humanists salivate. Sure, they might acknowledge that it could never really happen, but secretly, they are afire with delight, even merriment.
One of the results of the government programs cutting care and pleasing corporate lobbyists is Emily (Meg Fozzard), a disabled woman about to have her benefits reduced again despite a brain injury, short-term memory issues, shaky balance confining her to a wheelchair, and hands that shake. Deemed fit to work after a degrading assessment by a disinterested bureaucrat who had trouble getting Emily’s name right, her devoted sister and full-time caregiver, Sadie (Shian Denovan) reaches her own limit. Instead of crumbling, though, she channels her smarts and her anger into a bold scheme involving a rag-tag group of friends, and the newly righteous Harrington. They will take down the government before it can vote the new cuts into law. All they need to do is break into Parliament and steal, then make public, Wilson’s little black book, the one with all the blackmail dirt he uses to maintain power.
Yes, it’s far-fetched. Yet it empowers the little guy in ways that can’t fail to engage even the most jaded of political cynics. Credit Denovan’s low-key, committed performance that grounds the proceedings. Credit also writing rife with vicious wit, and prescient observations about weaponing boredom and using soccer (football) as a metaphor for how politics works. Fear not if you don’t understand the British system of government. Neither does Jason (Daniel Davids), the twenty-something tech whiz who makes short work of security measures and doesn’t apologize for finding politics boring during an impromptu tutorial on same by Harrington.
The script is heavy on startling statistics integrated into the outrage, like the seventeen-thousand deaths due to health care cuts in the world’s sixth riches country. If Presswell falters with scenes of tender sentiment, he is precise in evoking the crushing sense of helpless rage that a bottom-line based bureaucracy engenders. The dissection of absurdities great and small is flawless, and the dialogue is stinging as it slices with surgical precision. Presswell has a dynamic way of cross-cutting disparate conversations that amplify each one and at one point, against all odds, presents a template for bi-partisan cooperation that is as breathtaking as it is eminently achievable by participants willing to see beyond screed and bias. A tall order, yes, but one can dream. It’s the point of the film.
THE WHIP exhibits a nimble intellect unfolding a social justice caper at a sprightly pace with curveballs and pithy observations about the media and what Tom Wolfe so eloquently dubbed radical chic. The politics is local, and very personal, as people on the right side of history heroically rise to the challenge of breaking the law in order to make a difference. And stumble their way into our hearts.
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