Electricity ***½ (2014, Agyness Deyn, Lenora Crichlow, Christian Cooke) – Movie Review

Supermodel-turned-actress Agyness Deyn stars as Lily O’Connor, a young woman haunted since early childhood by epilepsy that brings her extraordinary hallucinations, who heads to London to search for her long-lost brother (Christian Cooke).

Experiencing fits, suddenly and unpredictably, Lily says she is like ‘Alice falling down the rabbit hole’ as the electric storms start in her head and her brain takes a tour. To convey these fits on screen, the director opts for point of view subjective camerawork, interpreting them in trippy, sic-fi-looking time-travel/warp speed-style effects. These may sound corny and prosaic, but work very well and provide a highly-charged adornment to the film, making it more memorable and special.

Though slightly hampered by her way-too-good looks, Deyn gives a striking, quite mesmerising performance and director Bryn Higgins delivers an imaginative, visually arresting Brit indie movie, thanks to eye-catching cinematography by Si Bell.

These fine pieces of work grace an otherwise modest drama, with a moderate screenplay by Joe Fisher, based on a debut novel by Ray Robinson, in which the heroine encounters a series of none-too-believable eccentric characters and situations. It’s unfortunate that the story’s focus on the disability of epilepsy seems to be rather blurred, treating it more like a plot device, like the ‘blind woman’ who is regularly terrorised in thrillers.

Nevertheless, Electricity is very worthwhile for the excellent work by Deyn, Bell and Higgins, who prove themselves names to watch. TV veteran Higgins’s previous film was Unconditional Love (2012), also with Christian Cooke.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Movie Review

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