A gripping dystopian thriller set in modern Britain outsmarts its generic roots.

Almost every day we read of terrible acts committed by unstable individuals. Toby Nealey (George MacKay) is angry and disenchanted, raging against the machine. Above his bed he has sprayed the legend ‘Nothing Is True – Everything Is Permissible’. So he spits in the face of authority, breaking into the homes of the affluent, defacing their property and leaving his trademark calling card ‘I Came By’ plastered across a pristine white wall in thick spray paint. While he enjoys his anonymous notoriety on social media, he is not above making the life of his own mother, Lizzie (Kelly Macdonald), absolute hell. She, too, is a part of the bourgeoisie, cosying up to Bake-Off on the sofa with a glass of red wine while Toby is out on the street getting wasted. As a widow and a single mother with a difficult son, she proves to be a good listener as a psychiatrist preaching the values of parenthood (“the pay-off is to see your children happy”). Toby, meanwhile, having failed at art, music and uni, steals his mother’s TV remotes and smashes them against a wall.

The Iranian director Babak Anvari (Under the Shadow) paints modern Britain as a dystopian society, in which the successful are targeted by the underclass. There’s an air of A Clockwork Orange transported to London today, reinforced by a blast of Henry Purcell’s Funeral Music pinched from Kubrick’s classic. Toby speaks in a mock black accent and in the guise of George MacKay, with his tattoos and muscular frame, he is a terrifying figure. The wealthy, unlike Toby, have worked hard for their chosen lifestyle, so are they not entitled to enjoy the fruits of their labour without fear of invasion? But there’s a twist. Just as Alex in A Clockwork Orange was to rue his day, so Toby – slipping into the mansion of a former judge (a fit, tanned Hugh Bonneville) – bites off more than he can chew.

Essentially, I Came By is an ingenious thriller layered with topical commentary, ambiguous dramatis personae and a social realism one doesn’t often encounter in such generic material. With its themes of rebellion, parenting and race, it is an unsettling cocktail of ideas and shocks. And Anvari, who co-wrote the screenplay with Namsi Khan, has made a number of smart choices, not least casting George MacKay (1917, Munich – The Edge of War) as Toby and Hugh Bonneville as the suave but perhaps unsavoury Judge Blake. Neither are what we have come to expect. Kelly Macdonald, too, brings real angst to her role as a frustrated symbol of the complacent class, while Percelle Ascott and Varada Sethu are good in support as a young couple with their own impending challenges.

The film’s strength is its unpredictable narrative arc and its credible characters, all trapped in a game of cat and mouse at the mercy of an unyielding system (even with a black female detective on the case). Its weakness is its instantly forgettable title and a conclusion that is just too pat.

JAMES CAMERON-WILSON

Cast: George MacKay, Percelle Ascott, Kelly Macdonald, Varada Sethu, Franc Ashman, Anthony Calf, Hugh Bonneville, Alicia Ambrose-Bayly, Gabriel Bisset-Smith, Antonio Aakeel, Tarik Badwan, Jonathan Coy.

Dir Babak Anvari, Pro Babak Anvari, Screenplay Babak Anvari, Ph Kit Fraser, Pro Des Ben Smith, Ed Matyas Fekete, Music Isobel Waller-Bridge, Costumes Holly Smart.

Film4/Regency Enterprises/XYZ Films/Two & Two Pictures-Netflix.
109 mins. UK. 2022. UK Rel: 19 August 2022. US Rel: 31 August 2022. Cert. 15.

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