Keeping Mum

views updated

Keeping Mum ★★½ 2005 (R)

Smith steals the show in this black comedy as homicidal housekeeper Grace. She's just taken a job with harried, oblivious vicar Walter Goodfellow (Atkinson) and his neglected family. Bored wife Gloria (Scott Thomas) is flirting with her brash American golf pro Lance (Swayze); teen daughter Holly is a nympho; and younger son Petey (Parkes) is beset by bullies. But tart-tongued Grace will make everything all right since her lurid past (a stint in a prison for the criminally insane) has not made her squeamish about getting things done. 103m/C DVD . GB Maggie Smith, Rowan Atkinson, Patrick Swayze, Kristin Scott Thomas, Emilia Fox, James Booth, Liz Smith, Tamsin Egerton, Toby Parkes; D: Niall Johnson; W: Niall Johnson, Richard Russo; C: Gavin Finney; M: Dickon Hinchliffe.