Georgetown (2020)

Directed by Christoph Waltz. Starring Christoph Waltz, Vanessa Redgrave, Annette Bening, Corey Hawkins, Laura de Carteret, David Reale, Nancy Palk, Alexander Crowther. [R]

There’s less here than it appears in this pungent “fictionalized truth” of an unscrupulous social climber (Waltz)—and possibly a former brigadier general in the Iraqi military(!)—who marries a much older socialite (Redgrave), presumably to position himself as a beltway insider. The pathological liar is intriguing at times, but we’re left to observe behavior without much of a clue as to what motivates him, and there isn’t a stylistic device or absurdist touch to the dark humor (as found in distant cousin, Reversal of Fortune). Waltz brings his droll sense of the macabre to the role, an obsequious charmer you can see right through yet want to believe anyway, but he needs a foe to bring him out of his sociopathic shell, and his dubious lawyers and his wife’s Harvard professor daughter (Bening) don’t cut it; the latter initially did the trick, but after the halfway mark, the script curiously loses interest in her and she all but becomes a background character amid all the flashbacks and courtroom scenes. More devilish wit would have helped, as would a final act that culminated in more than a dutiful shrug. Waltz’s directorial debut, where he’s credited in that role as “C. Waltz”. Debuted in 2019 at the Tribeca Film Festival, then rolled out in several international markets during the 2020 pandemic, before finally getting a commercial release in the States in 2021.

48/100