The Young Poisoner's Handbook
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The Young Poisoner's Handbook |
| Original title | The Young Poisoner's Handbook |
| Country of production |
Great Britain Germany France |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1995 |
| length | 99 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Benjamin Ross |
| script |
Jeff Rawle Benjamin Ross |
| production | Sam Taylor |
| music |
Robert Lane Frank Strobel |
| camera | Hubert Taczanowski |
| cut | Anne Sopel |
| occupation | |
| |
The Handbook of the Young Poison Mixer is a black comedy from 1995. It is set in England in the 1960s and is about a young person who administered various poisons to people close to him and thus murdered them. The film is loosely based on the true case of the Bovingdon Poisoner or The Teacup Poisoner Graham Young , who killed two of his work colleagues with poison in the 1970s.
The Young Poisoner's Handbook was director Ross's first feature-length film.
action
London, in the suburb of Neasden, in the middle of the 1960s: the intelligent but amoral teenager Graham is an outsider and doesn't get along well with his family either. Especially with his prudish stepmother and sister, he keeps getting into conflicts. He is repeatedly punished, especially for his interest in chemistry - even if he is not always the culprit and his sister misused the good china for her depilatory mixture. He reads a lot, is interested in natural science, especially chemical processes, medical curiosities and poisons. He also deals with morbid topics, for example, frightening his potential girlfriend Sue, who is secretly smuggling specialist literature for him as a librarian, with his interest in a serious car accident.
When his best friend's rendezvous with his girlfriend Sue, whom he himself has chosen as the “queen”, begins to poison her and can temporarily take his place. His decision to gain fame as a great poisoner is slowly taking shape. When his prudish stepmother finds erotic magazines in a hiding place, which presumably belong to his father, Graham is punished for it. Graham begins to slip her chocolates, poisoned as revenge, and later a stomach sedative that is also poisoned. To cloud his sister's gaze, he manipulates her eye drops. Ironically, he takes full care of his sick mother. He noted down the consequences of the administered dosages meticulously in a kind of medical-experimental diary. It is not the only poisoning that he inflicts on others, a mysterious wave of disease spreads in Graham's environment. When his stepmother accidentally finds Graham's diary, it is already too late for her. The poison triggers almost complete paralysis and hair loss in her. Mute, motionless and visibly withdrawn, she finds herself at the mercy of Graham.
After the death of his stepmother and suspicions from his friends and relatives, he is caught and sentenced to stay in a closed psychiatric institution. There he seeks the proximity of the renowned specialist and dream interpreter Dr. Zeigler, with the aim of deceiving him in order to be released again into freedom. To pretend he was feeling emotions and remorseful feelings, he notes down the nightmares of his friend and bed neighbor, who also murdered his mother. When he finally hangs himself from the agony imposed by Graham, Graham is dropped for lack of progress. Only after his own suicide attempt does Graham begin to develop his own sense of morality - he seems to be on the way to healing. After he was suspended, the rest of his family turned away from him out of suspicion. For rehabilitation he is placed as a simple warehouse worker in a company specializing in photo cameras and lenses.
The many conflicts and entanglements in the community of his employees are troubling him, and he is increasingly drawn to the chemical cabinet of the work laboratory. Graham begins again to poison colleagues who insulted or stood in his way by manipulating food and tea. After exhibiting profound knowledge about poisoning at a crisis conference in his company and telling an employee about his stay in a psychiatric institution, Graham is finally revealed as the real reason for the mysterious wave of illness. After a short escape, he initially failed to commit suicide using poison, which he later successfully repeated in a prison cell. He sends his life story, the “Handbook of the Young Poison Mixer”, to his now disaffected former therapist Dr. Pointer.
reception
The film moves on a fine line, with its sometimes very black humor you don't know whether to cry or laugh, according to the British Time Out.
Some critics have recognized the plot that a murderous teenager is supposedly cured by experimental psychology and released back into society as a clear homage to A Clockwork Orange .
The portrayal of the then 19-year-old Irishman Hugh O'Conor was praised, he played Graham with an emptiness and intensity that reminds of the young Dennis Hopper . Although his teenager is a monster at heart, he appears strangely seductive as an intelligent young ghost who simply wants to be excellent in his self-chosen area.
Awards
The film was nominated for a Golden Leopard at the 1995 Locarno Film Festival .
Web links
- The Young Poisoner's Handbook on the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Critique of the British Time Out Film Guide ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed March 17, 2008
- ↑ Criticism on Filmcritic.com ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed March 18, 2008
- ↑ Critique of the Washington Post , accessed March 17, 2008
- ^ Review by Roger Ebert , accessed on March 17, 2008
