Leslie Felperin 

The Incident review – pointedly understated middle-class sex drama

A man turns his back on his perfect life and sleeps with an underage prostitute in this well-acted but unlikely drama
  
  

Innumerable shades of taupe … Ruta Gedmintas and Tom Hughes in The Incident
Innumerable shades of taupe … Ruta Gedmintas and Tom Hughes in The Incident Photograph: PR Company Handout

Annabel (Ruta Gedmintas), a gallerist, and her architect husband, Joe (Tom Hughes), are ridiculously good-looking, wealthy enough to afford two or maybe more homes, and about to have their first child. But their perfectly appointed life with its chunky knits and innumerable shades of taupe is about to unravel. One night, for reasons never directly explained (perhaps writer-director Jane Linfoot thinks they are obvious and self-explanatory), Joe pays for sex with Lily (Tasha Connor), an underage girl who picks up customers out of a local pizza parlour. Then, a series of unfortunate and somewhat unlikely coincidences put Lily and Annabel on a collision course, leading to pointedly understated drama about how the middle classes fail to see the suffering and exploitation right in front of their retrousse noses. Gedmintas impresses with the trickiest role of the three and makes up for her annoying turn as a cutesy love interest in the recent A Street Cat Named Bob, while Connor also compels with an alert, layered performance.

 

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