Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
 

An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (1981)

Director: Christopher Petit

Average user rating
No reviews

Movie review

From Time Out Film Guide

Toss a girl down a disused well, and watch her struggle to get out: a scene which deserves a corner in cinema history. Based on the novel by PD James, this is a stinging film noir played out in the long, russet shadows of an English summer: the story of a young woman (Guard) who, after the quiet suicide of her partner, takes control of the private detective agency he has bequeathed to her, and is asked (by Whitelaw) to investigate another suicide - the son of a prominent businessman - found hanged in a rented cottage. The plot is spare, bitter, and buried in the past. All the more credit to director and co-writer Petit (in his second film) for not resorting to the easy recourse of flashback; it's a restraint that contributes to the film's special, uneasy quality of the here-and-now.

Author: JS 0000-00-00 00:00:00

Time Out Film Guide

  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields


Cast & crew

Director: Christopher Petit

Producer: Michael Relph, Peter McKay

Cast: Billie Whitelaw, Pippa Guard, Paul Freeman, Dominic Guard, Elizabeth Spriggs, David Horovitch full cast

Genre(s): Thrillers

Duration: 94 mins


Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.