Fantasia Report: Puritan Review

Nick Moran – bizarrely underused since his star turn in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels – stars as Simon Puritan, a hard drinking washed out writer plagued by migraines and eking out a living conning the grieving with staged psychic readings. Puritan is on the road to self destruction but his path takes an interesting turn one night when a shadowy disfigured man stops him from stepping in front of a train in a fit of drunken self loathing. The figure disappears but soon turns up at Simon’s door identifying himself as the husband one of Simon’s upcoming appointments and offering specific details of her grief in the hope that Simon can offer her some comfort. And so Simon meets Ann, the beautiful trophy wife of a famous self help author and consultant with rumored ties to the mob – very definitely not the badly burned man with the exhaustive knowledge of her life – who Simon soon falls into an affair with. The strange man returns with warnings of impending doom, the husband ends up dead, and Simon is swept into a cover up with no idea of who he can trust …

Where in the world has Nick Moran been? Despite turning in the strongest performance of the lock stock quartet Moran has been virtually invisible since while Jason Statham has gone on to become a major action star and Jason Flemyng remains in high demand as a character player. Once again Moran proves himself a talent worthy of attention with his performance as Simon Puritan, delivering a beautifully nuanced performance with depth and soul as this horribly broken man trying to find some hope and purpose to his life. Hajaig’s script smartly rides the line between giving the characters too much to do and too little, but it is purely Moran who finds the soul of this man. The film rides purely upon his shoulders and he carries it easily.

Another great strength of Puritan is Hajaig’s eye beyond the camera. He shoots beautiful film, filling Simon’s Victorian-era home with deep shadows and richly over saturated colors, to say nothing of cathedrals and bars he frequents. Puritan is recognizably set in modern day London but Hajaig’s use of color transforms the city into a mysterious, haunted place where seemingly anything is possible.

Smart, well performed and beautifully shot Puritan has only one significant problem, namely that it doesn’t quite know when to stop. Having woven a smart tale that floats many satisfying possibilities while offering few solid answers through the bulk of the film but the final ten minutes are spent trying to answer questions better left unanswered and wrapping up purely secondary elements that need not be included at all. The closing ten minutes don’t do any significant damage to what came before but they could easily be lopped off completely and the film would be stronger if they were.

Overlong ending notwithstanding Puritan is a very strong piece of work, its intelligent script anchored by a dead solid performance from Moran and Hajaig’s frequently stunning visuals. Clearly this man is a significant talent who bears watching.