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to maintain good sexual relations with his wife, Scott Thomas, which has led her to have a fling with her golf pro, an American stud (played by Patrick Swayze in the broadest possible manner). The couple’s children—a sexually active daughter and a boy who’s always being bullied—face challenges of their own until housekeeper Smith arrives on the scene. This efficient newcomer to their lives has a knack for solving problems…by eliminating the people who cause them. (She doesn’t limit herself to humans: an annoyingly noisy dog belonging to a neighbor is quietly dispatched, offscreen of course.)

We learn the truth about the housekeeper in a flashback prologue, but naturally it takes her new employers considerably longer to catch on to what’s happening right under their noses.

Keeping Mum doesn’t aspire to be a comedy for the ages, but it achieves its modest goals with expertise—a word I can’t apply to an overwhelming number of contemporary comedies—and that’s what makes it entertaining.

The thought of Dame Maggie as a cheerful ax murderer may startle some, but she’s played all kinds of characters in her long and varied career. Young viewers who only know her from the Harry Potter films might do well to see her in a different light here.

What a pleasure it is to watch these actors at work. Atkinson and Smith are past masters at comedy, but we rarely get to see Scott Thomas cut loose this way and she’s wonderful.

Oddly enough, this quintessentially British comedy was cowritten by director Niall Johnson and American Richard Russo, the novelist who gave us Empire Falls and such screenplays as Nobody’s Fool. So much for clichés.

61. KILL ME LATER

(2001)

Directed by Dana Lustig

Screenplay by Annette Goliti Gutierrez

Story by Dana Lustig and Annette Goliti Gutierrez

Based on a short film by María Ripoll

Actors:

SELMA BLAIR

MAX BEESLEY

O’NEAL COMPTON

LOCHLYN MUNRO

D. W. MOFFETT

BRENDAN FEHR

TOM HEATON

Utilizing suicide as a plot point provides a challenge to any filmmaker, no matter how experienced. If the script is a black comedy, audiences can accept the idea, played out in absurdist terms. If the tone is more serious, viewers may feel uncomfortable or downright squeamish. Yet Dana Lustig, a director with only one feature under her belt (Wedding Bell Blues) manages to merge elements of comedy and drama.

Kill Me Later establishes its heroine’s state of mind in the opening scenes. Selma Blair plays a brooding bank teller who’s been carrying on a loveless affair with her boss (D. W. Moffett), but when his wife turns up, pregnant and happy, Blair’s emotions flare up. She ascends to the roof of the bank building, climbs on the ledge, and prepares to jump off. Just then the door to the roof opens and a bank robber (Max Beesley), fleeing from policemen who are in hot pursuit, grabs her as a hostage. When she’s forced to take off with him, she elicits a promise from the thief: he will kill her later.

Naturally, as they take it on the lam a relationship develops between the two. As we learn more about them we come to understand what has driven Blair to the point of no return, and how a seemingly smart guy like Beesley could commit such a desperate crime. The key to the movie is that each one is determined to shield the other.

Casting is crucial to the success of this film. The female protagonist is a gloomy figure who dresses all in black; if there weren’t something inherently interesting or likable about the actress playing her, we wouldn’t have any reason to care about her fate. Blair gives us that ability. (Although she’s never become a major star, Blair reflects a refreshing intelligence on camera; we sense that the wheels are always turning in her head.)

Beesley has to indicate that his Charlie Anders has something on the ball, even though he’s risked everything in a moment of foolish bravado. He, too, gives a thoroughly engaging performance. (His career seemed poised to move up a notch when he won the leading role in Glitter the following year opposite pop star Mariah Carey, but the film tanked. He’s kept