I’d heard 2011 indie film ‘Silver Tongues’ described as a “dark little drama” in passing, but by GOD was that an understatement. Director and writer Simon Arthur received the "someone to watch" award at the Independent Spirit Awards for his work directing the flick, which begins fairly innocuously with a saucy little scene in a hotel room bed. When the first scenario starts rolling out it could easily be mistaken for a challengingly funny sex romp - it has all the elements: the unhappy honeymoon, the sexy young wife, the dodgy swingers in the motel restaurant - but soon veers off in one hell of a tricky direction.

I’d heard 2011 indie film ‘Silver Tongues’ described as a “dark little drama” in passing, but by GOD was that an understatement. Director and writer Simon Arthur received the "someone to watch" award at the Independent Spirit Awards for his work directing the flick, which begins fairly innocuously with a saucy little scene in a hotel room bed. When the first scenario starts rolling out it could easily be mistaken for a challengingly funny sex romp - it has all the elements: the unhappy honeymoon, the sexy young wife, the dodgy swingers in the motel restaurant - but soon veers off in one hell of a tricky direction.

We meet traveling middle-aged couple Gerry (a deeply disturbing Lee Tergesen) and Joan (Enid Graham) as they accidentally (or so it seems) befriend a young honeymooning duo, Alex (Tate Ellington) and Rachel (Emily Meade). The latter pair appear at first appear to be film’s real protagonists, then over dinner and a little too much wine, the older pair (apparent swingers, or are they?) subtly undermine the younger couple’s mutual trust, then leave them with a world blown apart by shock and potential infidelity.

Itinerant Gerry and Joan then set off for a cheerful drive around New England finding strangers to play vicious and devastating mind games with, including an African-born reverend (Portia), a lonely, senile man in a rest home (Harvey Evans), and finally a suspicious, tough nut policewoman (Rosa Arredondo) who mistakenly thinks she has Gerry’s modus operandi nailed. In the few glimpses we get of the couple when they are not role-playing and messing with others’ minds, it looks like they’re playing in their own game of master and servant, with Gerry mostly definitely as sadistic master. I found these scenes the toughest to watch, which is quite something in a movie that really does make you squirm when some of the crueller moments kick in.

When towards the end there’s a tiny little hint of an explanation as to why Gerry and Joan feel the need to recklessly tear lives apart it’s more of a ‘huh?’ moment than a cinematic revelation, and leaves the watcher’s mood on an ever darker note. “Silver Tongues” is most definitely a crafty but mean-spirited little romp, and some have said that Arthur’s debut feature is definitely offbeat, if somewhat distasteful in its focus on cruel mind games played for the hell of it.

It is most definitely well shot (its grimness is evident in every grubby bathroom and set of slightly off white, soiled bedsheets) and acted (Graham in particular gets to really stretch his acting legs and I will never look at him the same way again), and if you like long stretches of telling dialogue then you will love ‘Silver Tongues’ from beginning to end. It has a theatrical feel running all the way through probably mainly due to the latter, which some critics say echoes “modern day theatre of cruelty” specialists like the amazing Neil La Bute and Martin McDonagh.

It is definitely a film that doesn’t concentrate on tying up loose ends, which leads you to feel that perhaps you’re riding the same emotional rollercoaster that the protagonists’ victims are tumbling helplessly from. Extremely clever and well acted, perhaps we are the couple’s primary targets? Either way, it’s a bloody dark but rather great flick - just don’t pull it out on date night.

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