Crowhurst

The strange tale of tragic round-the-world sailor Donald Crowhurst has all the elements of a gripping movie and, indeed, it has been told before - in fact, in the same year, with Colin Firth in The Mercy. So why tell it again? Under-the-radar British director Simon Rumley has the answer; shooting with a tiny budget and a cast of unknowns, his film embraces all the limitations of indie film-making, creating a claustrophobic and often viscerally disturbing portrait of a man driven to madness. Visually inspired by the mind trips of Don't Look Now director Nicolas Roeg (who lends his weight as executive producer), Crowhurst, like its subject, is eccentric from the off, creating an off-kilter mood with its repetitions, close-ups and unhealthy, desaturated colours. As played by Justin Salinger, Donald is a broke and broken man, but we don't know how broken until he leaves dock, in a boat he can't sail, in a race he can't win. Rumley sets the scene, but Salinger steals the show in a psychodrama that's both fascinatingly weird and weirdly fascinating.