Mr. Malcolm’s List

Regency is back in style with a slew of Jane Austen adap­ta­tions jostling for atten­tion along­side authors riff­ing on the clas­sics. Mr. Malcolm’s List falls into the lat­ter camp offer­ing a slice of frothy 19^th-cen­tu­ry escapism bol­stered by its strong cast and adher­ence to the era’s soci­etal trap­pings, with Sope Dìrísù tak­ing on a tit­u­lar role cut from the same sto­ic cloth as Mr. Darcy.

The year is 1818, and Mr. Mal­colm has been crowned the offi­cial ​“catch of the sea­son.” Plen­ty of eli­gi­ble soci­ety women are vying for his atten­tion, includ­ing the start­ing-to-get-des­per­ate Julia Thistle­waite (Zawe Ash­ton). Julia has been out for four sea­sons, and the cloud of spin­ster­hood hangs over her head. You can hear Austen’s echoes through­out this sto­ry; if Mal­colm is Dar­cy, then Julia has shades of Emma but even less self-awareness. 

Author Suzanne Allain — who also wrote the script — effec­tive­ly cap­tures Austen’s social satire in Julia’s moti­va­tion and every­thing that fol­lows. A love match might be the ini­tial moti­va­tion, but Mr. Mal­colm quick­ly spins into a revenge plot after Julia is pub­licly humil­i­at­ed via car­i­ca­ture (the repeat­ed ref­er­ences to this nev­er stop being fun­ny). Her child­hood friend Seli­na Dal­ton (Frei­da Pin­to) pos­sess­es poise, intel­li­gence, and beau­ty but lacks upper-class cur­ren­cy, and thus becomes a cru­cial part of Julia’s scheme.

While the over­all dots of the sto­ry are easy to con­nect, direc­tor Emma Hol­ly Jones keeps a play­ful tem­po that adds to the over­all enjoy­ment of watch­ing these var­i­ous roman­tic tropes play out. When the bushy-mous­tached Cap­tain Hen­ry Osso­ry (Theo James) joins the dat­ing frame, it is game on, and his bound­less ener­gy con­trasts the reserved Mr. Mal­colm. Throw­ing scene-steal­er Ash­ley Park into the mix as the uncouth Ger­tie Cov­ing­ton only makes the ridicu­lous sen­ti­ments of the time more pronounced. 

Shift­ing the set­ting from Lon­don to Mr. Malcolm’s opu­lent coun­try manor will sat­is­fy those want­i­ng to rev­el in the era’s archi­tec­ture, and the gowns don’t dis­ap­point either. Cos­tume design­er Pam Downe under­scores class dis­tinc­tions in the sump­tu­ous fab­ric choic­es and adds to the humour with over-the-top placed feath­ers. Lat­er, the mas­quer­ade ball is a mar­riage of aes­thet­ics that pro­vides the per­fect set­ting for the schem­ing Julia. 

Like Netflix’s mon­ster hit Bridger­ton, Mr. Malcolm’s List takes a con­tem­po­rary approach to its cast­ing with­in its depic­tion of Geor­gian-era Britain. Colour­blind cast­ing does negate the racist real­i­ty; how­ev­er, this fan­ta­sy of Regency life is more in tune with Austen’s work than the recent Dako­ta John­son-star­ring Persuasion. 

Ash­ton excels as Julia, cap­tur­ing the fussi­ness and out­rage this char­ac­ter uses as a shield to pro­tect her heart. Oliv­er Jack­son-Cohen serves as her comedic part­ner in crime as Julia’s cousin Lord Cas­sidy, prov­ing he is equal­ly adept in a lighter role as a men­ac­ing pres­ence in The Lost Daugh­ter and The Invis­i­ble Man.

Mr. Malcolm’s List isn’t rein­vent­ing the Regency wheel, but like any good end-of-sum­mer fling, it is a plea­sur­able expe­ri­ence that ticks every box — while not out­stay­ing its welcome. 

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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