Oxford Murders | Eastern North Carolina Now

    
“When a Butterfly Flaps its Wings: Does it Start a Hurricane on the Other Side of the World?”

    This farcical hypothesis was presented at a symposium by mathematician / philosopher Arthur Seldom, played by character actor John Hurt. His premise that everything is interconnected was one he could not endorse.

    What he could support was that there were no simple answers, and truth was a rare commodity. Factor in the remarkable occurrence that murders of the elderly, and the infirmed, began popping up throughout the provincial college town of Oxford, England, and the venerable Arthur Seldom has a proper stage to test his theories of logic to solve the murders, prevent them, or orchestrate them. The classic premise of the English whodunit.

    To better dramatize that point, at one juncture in the film when Arthur Seldom and Martin, played be Elijah Wood, when there were two more murders, began to rationalize a joint hypothesis of who was committing these heinous crimes by using the template board game Clue to make salient points. To dramatize the subplot that every thing and everyone is interconnected, Director Álex de la Iglesia focused on how our individual stories work in a disjointed, random manner to form a seamless flow of events that push us all toward near-predetermined outcome, which we can never really understand.

    Both Arthur Seldom and Martin saw the world through a prism of logic, but it was the older Seldom that still understood that random, illogical acts were just as critical in the outcome of the human experiment. It was an interesting premise to have these similar, yet divergent philosophies mixing it up as if in a struggle of great intellects for the possession of the correct hypothesis. Jorge Guerricaechevarrí as the writer, and Director Álexde la Iglesia, who wrote the screenplay as an adaptation of a Guillermo Martinez novel handled this interactive and quite adversarial dialogue quite well, and kept the story interesting. Sadly, they dropped the ball in two other areas.

    Martin, Elijah Wood, has a furtive conversation with one of the prime murder suspects, Beth, played by Julie Cox: Above. Arthur Seldom, John Hurt and Martin, Elijah Wood, consider all the potential possibilities: Below.



    Primarily, the conclusion of all their (Seldom and Martin) cognitive process of determining whodunit did not resemble, in measure, the peppy cerebral jockeying of these two great intellects. It was a let down of sorts. Also Elijah Wood was either miscast as Martin, or should have never had these passionate sex scenes with the buxom Lorna, played Leonor Watling. I still have trouble seeing the Actor Wood as the romantic leading man, especially if he and his lover are romping around semi-nude. It must be just me, but I still more than vaguely see Elijah Wood as Frodo Baggins. I suppose I subconsciously feel that the only chick I want see Frodo with is another hobbit …uh, Hobbit chick.

    The film worked on some levels, but I couldn’t take it fully at face value for the aforementioned reasons; however, I derived a great deal of pleasure watching the great John Hurt chew through some very good dialogue. Actor Hurt’s aptitude as a master thespian was well worth the 110 minutes it took to twist this whodunit into a sevicable tale.

    Rated R. Released in a limited release in theaters on August 6, 2010.

    This article provided courtesy of our sister site: Better Angels Now