James McAvoy Shines in This Wild, Unpredictable Dark Comedy

• James McAvoy’s portrayal of Detective Bruce Robertson in Filth is a bold, disturbing, and career-defining performance.
• The film blends dark comedy with unexpected plot twists, creating a thrilling and chaotic onscreen experience.
• McAvoy brings complexity and sympathy to his unlikable character, showcasing his range as an actor in the role.

Based on the Irvine Welsh novel of the same name, Filth is a surreal, funny, tragic, and disturbing film. In this genre-bending dark comedy, James McAvoy delivers his boldest character yet as a despicable protagonist. Beyond the wild chaos of his performance, Filth‘s story is bolstered by genuinely unexpected plot twists, adding to an overall thrilling onscreen experience.

McAvoy perfects the antihero role of Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson, allowing us to see the humanity in this otherwise deplorable bully of a character. It is a career-defining performance that set him on the path to other brutal characters that would come later in his career. Before films like Split or Atomic Blonde, Filth was the first time McAvoy’s darker side was showcased on screen, and boy, did it break through.

Set in Edinburgh, Filth focuses on Detective Sergeant Bruce Robertson (McAvoy) investigating a murder case. All the while, his mental health and stability are consistently deteriorating following the end of his marriage. Bruce does not play nice; he is manipulative, racist, misogynist, abusive, and has all the worst qualities a vindictive person in pain may display. McAvoy’s Bruce has no hesitation in making those around him uncomfortable.

Director Jon S. Baird had quite the task at hand in making a coherent film out of Irvine Welsh’s compelling but turbulent novel. The story itself is pure chaos, but also maintaining the overt Scottish essence while adapting for a global audience is quite a feat. Without revealing any spoilers, the film Filth indeed lives up to its name—not only is “The Filth” a slang term for police in Scotland, but the amount of ‘pure filth’ shown on screen is not for the faint of heart. While the plot has many amazing twists and turns, Filth is an experience that goes beyond the story. The tone of the film, the visuals and music, and, of course, the performances are what make Filth so uncomfortable and exhilarating.

The mental disintegration of Bruce Robertson is the narrative thread that holds this frenzied film together. At its core, it is a hard-hitting, although not necessarily sympathetic or even accurate, look at mental illness. Through abstract imagery and high-octane energy, Bruce is at the center of it all, as is his decline. Only someone as daring, vulnerable, and captivating as James McAvoy could pull this off and not turn you off to such an outwardly horrid man as Bruce.

There are two sides to Bruce Robertson. There is the malicious side which is on display for much of the screen time, but there is also a side to him dealing with deep-rooted issues. Bruce’s main goal in the film is to get a promotion at work to become Detective Inspector. He berates, manipulates, and humiliates his colleagues in pursuit of this end goal, and possibly just for the hell of it. At one point, he even asks, “See, every time a woman drops her trousers—promotion. Every time a man drops theirs—disciplinary action. Where’s the equality in that?”

Bruce believes that solving this murder case will lead him to getting the promotion, but as his mental state continues to deteriorate, he increasingly has more intense hallucinations. To add to his misery, his wife Carole has left him, and has been preventing him from seeing his daughter. One example of Bruce’s terrible behavior towards his colleagues comes from his interaction with Peter Inglis (Emun Mohammadi). He tries to take full advantage of the ingrained homophobia in the Edinburgh police force to knock Inglis out of the running for the promotion. He writes homophobic slurs about Inglis on the bathroom wall, and pretends to be outraged to find it, all as a guise to “out” Inglis for his sexuality. “This bullying… this bullying has to stop,” he says with despicable irony.

Through all of the outwardly malicious behavior, Bruce still manages to show empathy, albeit only to one person—Mary (Joanne Froggatt). Bruce meets Mary on the street as she calls for help for her dying husband. Bruce tries to save his life and forms a bond with Mary over the loss. He shows genuine compassion towards Mary, even going as far as to give her his phone number and address in case she ever needs anything. His scenes with Mary sit in stark contrast to his scenes with his colleagues. Instead of being wild and loud, he takes on a quiet demeanor towards her. In a chance meeting at a flower shop, she asks him if he has ever lost anyone; after confirming that he indeed has, he makes excuses and leaves teary-eyed, running away from the actual emotion at play.

Bruce’s duality again surfaces as Mary visits him at work with her son in tow. “This is the man who tried to save your daddy. He helped when the others just stood back and watched. He’s a fine man, son. I’d like you to be like him when you grow up,” she gushes. In response, he once again gets teary-eyed and offers to assist with anything she needs. In the scene immediately following this, Bruce’s debauchery is on full display, as he wildly snorts cocaine.

Filth was also the first time that James McAvoy abandoned his inherent charm for a movie role, appearing more haggard and vulgar than fans were used to seeing him. His casting was, at the time, against type. However, this archetype has since become a go-to form for McAvoy in his career. For such a likable actor, he has certainly developed a penchant and knack for unlikable characters. With just a facial expression, he is able to convey it all. McAvoy plays Bruce with a contemptible energy one minute, and a vulnerable one in the next—perfectly encompassing the duality of this character. He goes all in with the manipulative and morally corrupt behavior that Bruce partakes in, but never lets us forget that inside, Bruce is an insecure, weak man. At one point, he breaks the fourth wall and addresses the audience directly, in a most disturbing turn of events. His portrayal is so daring, that he authentically manages to shock the audience in key moments on screen.

As the film goes on, Bruce appears far more weary—his eyes look glassier, the circles underneath grow darker. His mood swings are far more extreme and sudden, with a harsher and starker contrast between his anger and sadness. In one scene, he cries while watching home videos of happier times with his wife and daughter. Through this sorrow, he still pushes through to bring forward his malignant side as he calls his friend’s wife for dirty talk. He’s still crying, yet keeps the perverse phone conversation going through the tears. McAvoy masterfully balances this array of emotions with seeming ease. His extreme moods are on full display as Bruce endlessly torments his colleagues, from the benign act of blaming his farts on others, to far more malicious forms of manipulations for his own gain.

In one brutal scene with his colleague Amanda (Imogen Poots), his misogyny and anger pour out. He swings from a violent rage one moment, to realizing what he’s done the next. There is genuine upset on his face as he apologizes. Amanda in turn lets down her guard to show him sympathy, as he proclaims, “I used to be a good person.” For the first time, he’s having a real conversation with a colleague, with true emotions on the table as he admits that “there’s something seriously wrong” with him. When she conveys worry and concern, Bruce instead lashes out with insults, going from a sad sympathetic man to his old vile angry self in a mere instant.

Pushing his limits to play a man with no boundaries, James McAvoy brings complexity and sympathy to the rather unlikable character of Bruce Robertson. In an electric performance, which was the first of its kind for McAvoy’s mainstream film career, he anchors a film which would otherwise be too erratic to follow without his presence. Filth showed the world what he was capable of as an actor, and opened up new horizons for his work. It remains truly a career-defining performance, cementing James McAvoy as one of the greatest, most interesting actors of his generation.

Filth is currently available to stream on Hoopla in the U.S.

Source: Collider