Novice British writer-director Thomas Hardiman takes some ambitiously big risks that pay off in his debut feature Medusa Deluxe, corralling a lively ensemble cast into a sprawling, single-shot, single-location drama that unfolds in real time across 100 frantic minutes. The seamless one-shot drama may be something of a gimmicky cliché in the wake of Birdman (2014), Victoria (2015) and Boiling Point (2021), but Hardiman gives this trope an extra twist of oddball high-camp swagger, spicing his offbeat comic thriller with sustained bursts of hilariously salty dialogue and balletic camerawork from ace Irish lensman Robbie Ryan, feted for his collaborations with Ken Loach, Noah Baumbach and Andrea Arnold.
Making its splashy world premiere in the open-air Piazza Grande at Locarno film festival, Medusa Deluxe is a unorthodox crime yarn about murky misdeeds in the colourful world of high-end hair design. It is sure to divide critics with its bumpy tonal swerves and disjointed plot, while some of the strong British accents may confuse some non-UK viewers – indeed, the Locarno screenings added English subtitles even to the English dialogue. But as an overall package, Hardiman’s full-blooded debut feels fresh, irreverent and hugely enjoyable. With a rich musical score, a mischievous attitude, a queer-friendly tone and a charismatic cast led by women of colour, it should find a keen audience at festivals and beyond.
In his Locarno press notes, Hardiman cites Robert Altman’s multi-strand ensemble drama Nashville (1975) and Sean Baker’s fast-paced sex-worker comedy Tangerine (2015) as key influences on Medusa Deluxe. There are echoes of other high-camp maestros here too, from early Baz Lurhmann to vintage Pedro Almodovar. Indeed, this film could almost have been called Hair Stylists on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.
Medusa Deluxe is a murder mystery of sorts, though the murder happens off-screen before the plot even begins, and the mystery remains pretty opaque throughout. Backstage at a regional hair design competition in an unnamed British town, a popular stylist called Mosca has been gruesomely slain and scalped on the night before his expected victory in the contest. The film begins soon after his body has been discovered, with police and forensic teams still combing the crime scene while the assembled throng of co-workers, rival stylists, ex-lovers and models reel from the shock.
After setting the surreal mood with a brief CGI sequence featuring stylised graphics of hair-care accessories, Hardiman opens with a bang in the form of a fierce, profane, high-decibel exchange between rage-filled Cleve (Clare Perkins) and religiously devout Divine (Kayla Meikle), hair salon bosses who both share a long and prickly history with the murder victim. Ryan’s restless camera bobs and dances around this glorious verbal fireworks display, then peels off to follow a group of devastated hair models sharing grisly gossip and murky speculation about Mosca’s death.
This freewheeling stop-start rhythm continues, with Ryan ducking out at the end of each compact chamber-drama to prowl the corridors, toilets and dressing rooms of the labyrinthine location building. Tensions explode after rumours emerge that the contest’s silver-quiffed manager Rene (Darrell D’Silva), one of Mosca’s numerous ex-lovers, has cut a secret deal to rig the winning result. Meanwhile Gac (Heider Ali), a security guard with shadowy connections to the dead man, suddenly becomes a key player when the investigation throws up a shady back story of secret sexual liaisons, drug deals and personal feuds.
Midway through, Medusa Deluxe takes a detour into more tragic terrain when Mosca’s current partner Angel (Luke Pasqualino) arrives to hear the terrible news, accompanied by the couple’s newly adopted baby (played by Logan and James Porter). In the following scenes, the babies actually display winningly magnetic screen presence while Pasqualino pitches his shrill performance too far into the realm of flamboyant gay-diva stereotype. Even in an archly mannered melodrama like this, such hammy overstatement grates a little.
Medusa Deluxe flows like a piece of audio-visual music, with Ryan’s fluid Steadicam gliding and swooping through every scene, often zoning in for almost clammily intimate facial close-ups. Even if the single-shot set-up looks more like an artfully edited collage at times, in Birdman style, the effect is much the same, kinetic and immersive. A rich score by Koreless, aka Welsh electronic composer Lewis Roberts, features artfully wonky dance-floor techno alongside spare soundscapes of hiss and rattle intended to evoke the snakes that made up the mythical Medusa’s hair. These strong aesthetic elements help bind the diffuse patchwork plot together, even if its resolution feels a little too fuzzy. Special credit is due here for Eugene Souleiman’s gravity-denying haute coiffure hair designs, plus extra niche architecture-geek kudos for a surprise cameo by the iconic Brutalist concrete bus station in Preston, the northern English city where the shoot took place.
Does it matter that Hardiman and his team ultimately deliver more propulsive momentum than tonal consistency or narrative coherence? Not really for such a engaging, original, richly flavoured debut which constantly keeps both cast and viewers on their toes, often literally. A closing stand-alone sequence, which features the entire ensemble disco-dancing in glittery outfits, is an audaciously theatrical pay-off that makes scant dramatic sense, but which is too enjoyably goofy on its own terms to really criticise. If nothing else, Medusa Deluxe makes a strong case that the work of many other film-makers, Ken Loach for example, would be significantly improved by adding a high-energy full-cast dance-off.
Venue: Locarno Film Festival (Piazza Grande)
Cast: Clare Perkins, Anita-Joy Uwajeh, Kae Alexander, Harriet Webb , Anita-Joy Uwajeh, Darrell D’Silva, Debris Stevenson, Heider Ali, Kayla Meikle, Lilit Lesser, Luke Pasqualino, Nicholas Karimi
Director, screenwriter: Thomas Hardiman
Producers: Michael Elliott, Louise Palmkvist Hansen, Lee Groombridge
Cinematography: Robbie Ryan
Editing: Fouad Gaber
Production design: Gary Williamson
Costume design: Cynthia Lawrence-John
Hair design: Eugene Souleiman
Music: Koreless
Production company: EMU Films (UK)
World sales: New Europe
In English
100 minutes
