No. 57. (2020) THE TRANSLATORS. Sept. 22nd.

 

Film No. 57 (2020)  Sept 22nd.  6:45 PM.  Cinema 2  LUNA Leederville.

"The first ten pages of Daedalus Book III are no longer yours. Pay up within 24 hours".(In shock, horror, Eric reads his text message while eating his evening meal).

I dare anyone to get 30 minutes into this puzzle of a film and predict where it is going! So long as you haven't read a spoiler review. This review will give no clues as to the outcome but more importantly it will, hopefully, be placed on your must see list. The Usual Suspects (maybe a little of Knives Out) is the film that most comes to mind when thinking about a comparative puzzle in a film.

Put simply and with little fanfare the film begins with a book show. Eric Angstrom (Lambert Wilson) the publisher of a book titled The Man Who Did Not Want To Die, the third in the Daedalus trilogy, expresses excitedly to the world it will be released in multiple languages within months. Cut to a montage of translators (9) making arrangements to arrive in Paris to bunker (literally bunker) for two months to translate the novel. Simple enough, the idea comes from a similar actual event which took place in Italy for a Dan Brown novel, years ago.

Early in the story it's revealed the first 10 pages of the book has been posted on the internet. Eric isn't happy, it could only have been done by a translator. But who? And is that the puzzle that needs solving? I can't tell you, I've already told you that.

The Translators is truly entertaining. It's clever, smart and best of all none of these qualities is possible without a cast to match. There's Alex Lawther (The End Of The F*cking World) and Olga Kurylenko (Quantum of Solace) who add youth and vibrancy as the English and Russian translators. Although the development of each of the translators is scant and could have been more thorough but the films length was perfect so elongating things may not have worked. If you like to be stretched with clever plotting, the this is for you. 10GUMS.