''Christie Malry’s Own Double-Entry'' is a 2000 film directed by Paul Tickell from a screenplay by
Simon Bent
Simon Bent is a British screenwriter and playwright, notable for work including BBC TV drama '' Beau Brummell: This Charming Man'' (2006), the screenplay for the feature film ''Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry'' (2000), and the Joe Orton biograph ...
B. S. Johnson
Bryan Stanley William Johnson (5 February 1933 – 13 November 1973) was an English experimental novelist, poet and literary critic. He also produced television programmes and made films.
Early life
Johnson was born into a working-class family, ...
.
It stars
Nick Moran
Nick Moran (born 23 December 1968 or 1969, sources differ) is an English actor and filmmaker, best known for his role as Eddie the card sharp in ''Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels''. He appeared as Scabior in ''Harry Potter and the Deathly H ...
as Christie Malry, an accounts clerk in contemporary
London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
who uses the system of
double-entry bookkeeping
Double-entry bookkeeping, also known as double-entry accounting, is a method of bookkeeping that relies on a two-sided accounting entry to maintain financial information. Every entry to an account requires a corresponding and opposite entry t ...
as a way to compensate himself for perceived injustices inflicted upon him by society, committing what he deems to be equivalent acts of revenge that begin with petty acts of vandalism but soon escalate to full-on terror attacks.
Plot
Christie Malry is twenty-something male who lives in
West London
West London is the western part of London, England, north of the River Thames, west of the City of London, and extending to the Greater London boundary.
The term is used to differentiate the area from the other parts of London: North Londo ...
with his terminally ill mother and works in an office, a job he finds unfulfilling and so distracts himself from the boredom by having violent fantasies in which he threatens his manager with a shotgun. At the suggestion of his friend Bernie he takes a night class in accountancy, where he is introduced to the theories and teachings of Fra Luca Pacioli, an early pioneer in the field of accounting and the author of Summa de arithmetica, one of the first books on the practice of
double-entry bookkeeping
Double-entry bookkeeping, also known as double-entry accounting, is a method of bookkeeping that relies on a two-sided accounting entry to maintain financial information. Every entry to an account requires a corresponding and opposite entry t ...
. Christie then resigns from his job and, shortly afterwards, Bernie is killed in a vehicle collision.
Interspersed with the main story are scenes set in
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) , from , with the same meanings. is a period in European history
The history of Europe is traditionally divided into four time periods: prehistoric Europe (prior to about 800 BC), classical antiquity (800 BC to AD ...
Milan
Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...
in which Fra Luca Pacioli is seen teaching his theories on accountancy at the court of Ludovico Sforza. In addition,
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...
is employed there, and these scenes also follow his struggles as he challenges what he sees as interference into his artistic vision from the
Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
, against a backdrop of an imminent invasion by the French army.
As Christie continues his accountancy studies and learns that debits must be cancelled out with credits he begins to ponder whether the same principles should apply to his actual life, wondering who will credit him for his mother’s cancer. He then starts a job at Tapper’s chocolate factory, where he meets Headlam, an eccentric co-worker whom he becomes friends with, and shortly afterwards hits upon the idea of using double-entry bookkeeping as a method of recording perceived wrongs made against him by society then cancelling them out by committing what he deems to be equivalent acts of revenge. Following the motto ‘for every debit there must be a credit’, he keeps detailed notes of such transactions in a ledger he carries with him, explaining his new system to his mother moments before she dies.
Christie’s initial attempts at balancing out the supposed injustices against him start with him committing petty acts of vandalism, such as running a key along the paintwork of a car whose owner had sounded its horn at him or throwing a brick through the window of an off licence he believed had sold his mother bootleg alcohol, along with causing trouble for his employer by discarding letters of complaint sent to the company and, in addition to starting a new job, he enters into a relationship with Carol, a girl he meets at his local butcher’s shop.
However, from this point on Christie’s acts of revenge become increasingly serious before gravitating to full-on acts of terrorism: he phones the police claiming to have planted a bomb in Leicester Square then, when the Foreign Secretary dies of a heart attack he makes another phone call in which he claims he was responsible. Not knowing who the true perpetrator is, the British government blames
Iraq
Iraq,; ku, عێراق, translit=Êraq officially the Republic of Iraq, '; ku, کۆماری عێراق, translit=Komarî Êraq is a country in Western Asia. It is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iran to the east, the Persian Gulf and K ...
for his activities and begins to escalate military action in retaliation. Christie now gravitates to actual violence, taking advice from sources such as
The Anarchist Cookbook
''The Anarchist Cookbook'', first published in 1971, is a book containing instructions for the manufacture of explosives, rudimentary telecommunications phreaking devices, and related weapons, as well as instructions for the home manufacture o ...
and blowing up a local tax office by placing a home-made bomb in a toy train and sending it through a tunnel adjacent to the building. He then kills over twenty thousand people by poisoning a reservoir in West London, another attack that is blamed on Iraq and leads to air strikes being launched against the country.
At this point Carol receives a visit from the police telling her that Christie is in hospital as the result of a bomb exploding on a bus he was travelling on, which is initially blamed on an Irish passenger. Christie is fatally wounded and dies in hospital with Carol by his side. However, when Carol returns to his flat she goes inside the spare room that he never let her enter and discovers it contains extensive details of his plan to bomb the
Houses of Parliament
The Palace of Westminster serves as the meeting place for both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Informally known as the Houses of Parliament, the Palace lies on the north ban ...
, and it is revealed that he was in fact carrying a bomb with the intention of doing this when it went off prematurely, exploding as the bus crossed
Westminster Bridge
Westminster Bridge is a road-and-foot-traffic bridge over the River Thames in London, linking Westminster on the west side and Lambeth on the east side.
The bridge is painted predominantly green, the same colour as the leather seats in the ...
.
Cast
*
Nick Moran
Nick Moran (born 23 December 1968 or 1969, sources differ) is an English actor and filmmaker, best known for his role as Eddie the card sharp in ''Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels''. He appeared as Scabior in ''Harry Potter and the Deathly H ...
as Christie
*
Neil Stuke
Neil Robert Stuke (born 22 February 1966 in Deal, Kent) is an English actor best known for his role of Matthew in the TV sitcom '' Game On'' and more recently for playing Billy Lamb in the BBC legal drama ''Silk''.
Career
Stuke played Matthew ...
as Headlam
*
Kate Ashfield
Kate Ashfield (born 28 May 1972) is an English actress, who has appeared in stage, TV and film roles, most famously in her role as Liz in the 2004 zombie comedy ''Shaun of the Dead''. She is the co-writer of the 2017 TV series ''Born to Kill''.
...
as Carol
*
Mattia Sbragia
Mattia Sbragia (born 17 April 1952) is an Italian character actor.
Biography
The son of the actor and stage director Giancarlo, Sbragia has been performing in films, on television, and in the theater for almost thirty years. He made his motion p ...
as
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...
*
Marcello Mazzarella
Marcello Mazzarella (born 18 October 1963) is an Italian actor. He appeared in more than sixty films since 1990.
Selected filmography
References
External links
*
1963 births
Living people
People from Erice
Italian male film actors ...
Shirley Anne Field
Shirley Anne Field (born Shirley Broomfield; 27 June 1938) is an English actress who has performed on stage, film and television since 1955, prominent during the British New Wave.
Early life
Broomfield was born in Forest Gate, Essex (now in ...
as Mary, the Mother of Christie
* Sergio Albelli as Duke Ludovico
* Salvatorre Lazzaro as Giacomo
* Peter Sullivan as Wagner
*
Tabitha Wady
Tabitha Wady (born 1 January 1976) is a British actress, known for playing receptionist Katrina Bullen in the BBC television soap opera '' Doctors'' and for her role as Gemma in '' Kevin & Perry Go Large''.
Before her appearance in ''Doctors' ...
as Lucy
*
Mel Raido
Mel Raido (born 1977) is a Jamaican-born English actor. Raido moved to London at three years old. After taking elocution lessons, he started to become hooked by the acting bug at school and studied at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art.< ...
as Bernie
Soundtrack
The
soundtrack
A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack ...
, released on the 11th of June 2001 on
Hut Records
VC Recordings trading as Hut Records was a British record label brand which was started in 1990 as a wholly owned subsidiary of Virgin Records. Despite being wholly owned by a major label, it was classed as an independent label for the purposes ...
, was written and performed by
Luke Haines
Luke Michael Haines (born 7 October 1967) is an English musician, songwriter and author. He has recorded music under various names and with various bands, including The Auteurs, Baader Meinhof and Black Box Recorder.
Career
''New Wave''
Haine ...
, who also co-produced it with Pete Hofman. It included a cover of
Nick Lowe
Nicholas Drain Lowe (born 24 March 1949) is an English singer-songwriter, musician and producer. A noted figure in power pop and New wave music, new wave,I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass. In the DVD commentary, Tickell and Moran discuss how
Billie Piper
Billie Paul Piper (born Leian Paul Piper; 22 September 1982) is an English actress and former singer. She initially gained recognition as a singer after releasing her debut single "Because We Want To" at age 15, which made her the youngest woman ...
was considered to perform the vocal on this song as she wished to work with Luke Haines, though this ultimately did not happen.
Production
Filming took place in late 1999; in an interview with Moran by
Jan Moir
Jan Moir (; born August 1958) is a British newspaper columnist. She works for the ''Daily Mail''. Several of her articles have provoked widespread criticism, such as one about Stephen Gately that disputed his official cause of death and linked hi ...
in ''
The Daily Telegraph
''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally.
It was f ...
'' on the 23rd of December he mentioned he was in the middle of making the film and that he was foregoing pudding because he had ‘five pages of nude scenes next week.’ This means that the film was made at the exact time during which it is set, as Christie’s gravestone at the end of the film shows that he died on the 13th of December 1999.
Despite being set in London and featuring a largely British cast, director Paul Tickell said in an interview that the film had no actual funding from Britain and bemoaned the state of the UK film industry: ‘There’s not a penny of the British Film industry in Malry. In spite of the relative success of the film I can’t see me making a film with anyone in the British Film industry at the moment.’ Funding was instead raised in Luxembourg and Holland, where much of the scenes were also filmed.
A number of London locations and landmarks can be seen in the film, including
Hammersmith Bridge
Hammersmith Bridge is a suspension bridge that crosses the River Thames in west London. It links the southern part of Hammersmith in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, on the north side of the river, and Barnes in the London Borough ...
(which is also mentioned in the novel and is close to where author BS Johnson grew up),
Westminster Bridge
Westminster Bridge is a road-and-foot-traffic bridge over the River Thames in London, linking Westminster on the west side and Lambeth on the east side.
The bridge is painted predominantly green, the same colour as the leather seats in the ...
and the London Eye. However, in the DVD commentary, Tickell and Moran discuss how most of the film was shot in
Luxembourg
Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...
, including the scene at a hydro-electric plant where Christie poisons London’s water supply, and how precautions often had to be made to disguise the true locations, such as getting traffic outside a pub to drive on the left side of the road as the characters walked in to make it look like it was in the UK.
Release
Despite production beginning in late 1999 the film did not receive a full release until 2002, with the film being screened in several UK cinemas including the
Prince Charles Cinema
The Prince Charles Cinema (PCC) is a repertory cinema located in Leicester Place, 50 yards north of Leicester Square in the West End of London. It shows a rotating programme of cult, arthouse, and classic films alongside recent Hollywood relea ...
followed by a Q&A session with the director and lead actors; Paul Tickell referred to the ‘guerrilla distribution’ of the film coming about as a result of the film struggling to find a distributor until the release of the soundtrack sparked interest in the film amongst critics and, as a result, ‘some screenings were arranged. Journalists loved it and then they reviewed it. That helped to get the ball rolling.’
The film received its UK premiere on the 15th of August 2002 at the
Institute of Contemporary Arts
The Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA) is an artistic and cultural centre on The Mall in London, just off Trafalgar Square. Located within Nash House, part of Carlton House Terrace, near the Duke of York Steps and Admiralty Arch, the ICA c ...
, London.
Reception
Critical Response
A number of reviews of the film were very positive, with ''
The Sunday Times
''The Sunday Times'' is a British newspaper whose circulation makes it the largest in Britain's quality press market category. It was founded in 1821 as ''The New Observer''. It is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News UK, w ...
'' calling it "brilliantly black and British", "Superb on every level" and concluding "If you don't like this, stop going to the cinema."
''
Uncut
Uncut may refer to:
* ''Uncut'' (film), a 1997 Canadian docudrama film by John Greyson about censorship
* ''Uncut'' (magazine), a monthly British magazine with a focus on music, which began publishing in May 1997
* '' BET: Uncut'', a Black Enter ...
'' made it their film of the month and later said it was "shamefully under-promoted by the British film industry".
Kevin Jackson in ''
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publish ...
'' praised it as a "brilliant British film about mass murder and, er, bookkeeping" and "a genuinely original, ambitious and wonderfully entertaining new British film" whilst expressing disappointment with the problems the producers had in finding a distributor, as its "hybrid nature" (such as the scenes set in 16th century Italy) had made it hard to classify and therefore market.
William Thomas, writing for ''
Empire
An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...
'', was also positive, awarding the film four stars and praising Tickell’s use of "striking visuals" to "illustrate his Kubrickian attack on the injustice of society" and adding that "Moran gives an impressive turn as the titular (anti)hero."
Peter Bradshaw
Peter Bradshaw (born 19 June 1962) is a British writer and film critic. He has been chief film critic at ''The Guardian'' since 1999, and is a contributing editor at ''Esquire''.
Early life and education
Bradshaw was educated at Haberdasher ...
, in the '' Guardian'', however, gave the film two out of five stars, writing that "Paul Tickell directs in the punky, bloody-minded spirit of Derek Jarman and Lindsay Anderson" but going on to say that it "can't decide if it's a period-piece about the shabby filing-clerk world of the 1960s, or an up-to-the-minute 21st century world of computer laptops" and criticising the "tatty and depressing Britishness of the film".
Bradshaw went on to criticise the Renaissance-set scenes, calling them "a double-entry narrative device which doesn't however cast much light on Christie", something echoed by Philip French in ''
The Observer
''The Observer'' is a British newspaper published on Sundays. It is a sister paper to ''The Guardian'' and '' The Guardian Weekly'', whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993. First published in 1791, it is the ...
'', who wrote that Tickell had "misguidedly turned a few hints from the novel about the activities of Luca Bartolomeo Pacioli, the Renaissance monk who invented double-entry book-keeping, into a parallel plot" though he also called it "an ambitious, intermittently effective movie". Tom Charity, writing in '' Time Out'' made a similar point, saying "your reviewer is bound to confess that algebraic theory might be considered less compelling than the misadventures of our would-be-accountant", but otherwise praised its "low budget ingenuity" and called it a "brave, risky adaptation".
Accolades
At the
56th British Academy Film Awards
The 56th British Academy Film Awards, given by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts, took place on 23 February 2003 and honoured the best films of 2002.
'' The Pianist'' won Best Film and Best Director for Roman Polanski. Daniel Day-L ...
, held in 2003, writer
Simon Bent
Simon Bent is a British screenwriter and playwright, notable for work including BBC TV drama '' Beau Brummell: This Charming Man'' (2006), the screenplay for the feature film ''Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry'' (2000), and the Joe Orton biograph ...
was nominated in the
BAFTA Award for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer
The BAFTA Award for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer is presented annually at the British Academy Film Awards in London. The British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), is a British organisation that hosts annual ...
category but lost out to
Asif Kapadia
Asif Kapadia (born 1972) is a British filmmaker.
Academy Award, BAFTA and Grammy winning director Asif Kapadia has made his name directing visually striking films exploring ‘outsiders’, characters living in extreme circumstances, fighting ...
for
The Warrior
A warrior is a person engaged or experienced in warfare, or a figurative term for a person who shows or has shown great vigor, courage, or aggressiveness, as in politics or athletics.
Warrior or Warriors may also refer to:
Indigenous groups
* ...
.
Luke Haines received a nomination for Best Music at the 2001
British Independent Film Awards
The British Independent Film Awards (BIFA) is an organisation that celebrates, supports and promotes British independent cinema and filmmaking talent in United Kingdom. Nominations for the annual awards ceremony are announced in early November, ...
, and at the same ceremony the following year the film won the award for Most Effective Distribution Campaign
Differences Between Novel and Film
Setting
The book and film are both set contemporarily to when they were released, so whilst the novel is set in the early 1970s the film is set in 1999, and Christie’s ledger includes cultural references such as Oasis,
Ben Elton
Benjamin Charles Elton (born 3 May 1959) is an English comedian, actor, author, playwright, lyricist and director. He was a part of London's alternative comedy movement of the 1980s and became a writer on the sitcoms '' The Young Ones'' and ''Bla ...
,
The Simpsons
''The Simpsons'' is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical depiction of American life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer Simpson, Homer, Marge ...
and Chris Morris, along with Christie’s gravestone showing he dies in December of that year.
Characters
In the novel Christie’s girlfriend is simply referred to as ‘the Shrike’, whereas in the film she is called Carol. In the DVD commentary Tickell explained this was part of them making the character more rounded than in the book. In addition, the character of Bernie does not exist in the book.
Plot
The film largely follows the same storyline as the novel though there are a number of differences, with the biggest one being that the novel ends abruptly when Christie is diagnosed with late-stage terminal cancer and dies of related pneumonia, whereas in the film he is killed when a bomb he is taking to detonate at the
Houses of Parliament
The Palace of Westminster serves as the meeting place for both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, the two houses of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Informally known as the Houses of Parliament, the Palace lies on the north ban ...
goes off unexpectedly, exploding as he carries it on a bus across Westminster Bridge and killing him, with the bombing being attributed to the
IRA
Ira or IRA may refer to:
*Ira (name), a Hebrew, Sanskrit, Russian or Finnish language personal name
*Ira (surname), a rare Estonian and some other language family name
*Iran, UNDP code IRA
Law
*Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, US, on status of ...
. His bereaved girlfriend, however, does learn of his involvement at the end of the film.
The scenes in which Iraq is held responsible for Christie’s crimes and punished with retaliatory air strikes do not appear in the book, and are somewhat prophetic seeing as how the film was made in late 1999, over three years before the
2003 Invasion of Iraq
The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a United States-led invasion of the Republic of Iraq and the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 (air) and 20 March 2003 (ground) and lasted just over one month, including 26 ...
. This was noted in a review by
Studio International
''Studio International'' is an international illustrated contemporary art magazine, formerly published in hard copy in London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Ki ...
, which praised the film’s ‘prescience, subject matter and intelligence’ for pre-emptively addressing issues such as the attacks on Iraq, domestic terrorism and financial crises.
Stylistic Differences
The novel features a number of metafictional elements (in line with the author’s belief that the novel was an outdated and limited artform) that are not reproduced in the film, such as how BS Johnson’s narrator visits Christie in hospital but has his visit cut short when ‘the nurses then suggested I leave, not knowing who I was, that he could not die without me’, the way a number of characters including Christie are aware they are appearing in a novel, such as when he is asked by his employer why he did not schedule his mother’s funeral a day later than he did replies ‘There wasn’t any more time. It’s a short novel’ or how he ponders on his deathbed whether his cancer ‘may have been caused through those misshapes I had on page 67!’ In addition, whilst the book features quotes from Luca Pacioli, the scenes depicting him are an invention of the film.
References
{{reflist
External links
* Archived Reviews and Interviews on the Internet Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/20110721190110/http://bsjohnson.info/film/content.aspx?title=christiemalryfilm&type=home
* Full Credits at the British Film Institute: https://www2.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4ce2b83cd3166
2000 filmsFilms shot in LondonFilms set in LondonFilms based on British novels