Hotel splendide

In the middle of nowhere, surrounded by sea, towers a large gothic family-run hotel cum health resort. It is run entirely under the shadow of “Mother”, the family’s recently deceased matriarch who upheld stringency and regiment as the path to purity and well-being. Despite the contradictions, for example, that the patients never leave the hotel cured, the hotel’s staff run things as mother would have: Ronald, the son/chef, prepares food that resembles cardboard; Cora, the daughter/therapist, treats patients stringently; and Dezmond, the hotel’s manager and mummy’s dearest, ensures everyone follows suit. Director Terence Gross delights in the oddness of this enclosed world, creating a carnivalesque universe reminiscent of the work of Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro. Into this world of stark repression, enters Kath, the hotel’s former chef and lover of Ronald who Mother previously banished. Kath’s ‘balanced’ perspective upsets the order of things and ultimately triggers the hotel’s destruction. “Hotel Splendide” is British to the core. The hotel is easily a metaphor for the Victorian era, a world ruled by repression. And reminiscent of Greenaway, Gross critiques this world to show the aberrances and contradictions it gives rise to. Its storybook fashion, evident in its mythical quality, eccentric characters and deep, dank secrets, ensures a heightened and colourful critique of perversions and oddities that arise from an isolated community. The performances also fit this style superbly. Cast includes Toni Collette, Daniel Craig, Katrin Cartlidge and Stephen Tompkinson.