Drowning by Numbers (1988)

User Rating:

6.8/10   

Director:

Peter Greenaway

Writer:

Peter Greenaway (written by)

Release Date:

June 1991 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama

Tagline:

The great death game.

Plot:

Tired of her husband's philanderous ways, the mother of two daughters drowns her husband. With the reluctant help of the local coroner...

Plot Keywords:

Coroner | Murder | Number | Counting | Game

Awards:

3 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Joan Plowright	...	Cissie Colpitts 1
Juliet Stevenson	...	Cissie Colpitts 2
Joely Richardson	...	Cissie Colpitts 3
Bernard Hill	...	Madgett
Jason Edwards	...	Smut
Bryan Pringle	...	Jake
Trevor Cooper	...	Hardy
David Morrissey	...	Bellamy
John Rogan	...	Gregory
Paul Mooney	...	Teigan
Jane Gurnett	...	Nancy
Kenny Ireland	...	Jonah Bognor
Michael Percival	...	Moses Bognor
Joanna Dickens	...	Mrs. Hardy
Janine Duvitski	...	Marina Bellamy

Runtime:

118 min

Country:

UK | Netherlands

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

South Korea:18 | Argentina:16 | Australia:M | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | UK:18 | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Suffolk, England, UK

Company:

Film Four International

Trivia:

All the numbers between 1-100 appear during the course of the film (not in sequence though).

Quotes:

Smut: The object of this game is to dare to fall with a noose around your neck from a place sufficiently high enough off the ground, such that the fall will hang you. The object of the game is to punish those who have caused great unhappiness by their selfish actions. This is the best game of all, because the winner is also the loser, and the judge's decision is always final.

Movie Connections:

References A Zed & Two Noughts (1985)

Soundtrack:

2nd Movement of Mozart's Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola and Orchestra K354

An intriguing puzzle that's fun to decipher

This is a picture that offers so much to the viewer. It is beautiful, but also, at times, grotesque. It is intriguing and complex, and covers a cornucopia of subjects. The film has an elegant Englishness about it. It is a film that always requires your attention and one that you will want to return to.

The film begins with a young girl (adorned in a dress from Velazquez's painting Las Meninas) who is skipping and counting stars, 100 of them (some of these stars have Greenaway names like Hoyten, Luper and Spica). She is the film's navigator.

The story is about three women, all with the same name, Cissie Colpitts, each from different age groups, who have something in common, they each murder their husbands by drowning them. They escape punishment from this by consenting to the needs of an amorous coroner, Madgett. Madgett's young son, Smut, tells us about different games, each of them rather odd. The film has a wonderful surreal feel to it. For instance, a man and a woman on bicycles collide with two dead cows, but it hardly perturbs them. Throughout the film there are the numbers 1 to 100 placed in ascending order on display in some peculiar positions. It's a fascinating riddle.