The Radleys Review: Love, Addiction and Choices

“The comedic premise of the film is that this family is living this dull, suburban life, and they’ve got a big secret, and no one knows what it is until this event happens in the film. And then the shit hits the fan, all hell breaks loose.” – Damian Lewis.

I finally met The Radleys last Friday at Cinema Village in NYC. And I met them in style, too… with my fangs on!

Probably because they saw us arriving for the 3:45 pm matinee quite early and taking pictures with the movie poster with our fangs on, the guys working at the cinema cafe were curious about whether we were involved with the movie 🙂 “Well, sort of,” I said. “I’m Damian Lewis’ number 1 fan in the world.” And this number 1 fan in the world is ready to give the wonderful fandom her take on this witty coming-of-age dark comedy with a bloody twist – pun intended! Thanks to Lewisto and Gingersnap for reading my review and giving feedback! And, if you don’t want any spoilers, read this after you see the movie!

The opening scene, which I am not giving away, sets the tone. There are creatures in this world whose natural cravings are well tolerated by humans. And then there are ones not well tolerated at all. The Radleys focuses on the latter.

The Radleys are seemingly an ordinary suburban family. They live in the small village of Bishopthorpe, Yorkshire. Peter Radley is an overworked general practitioner. His wife Helen is an amateur artist who paints houses and trees in watercolor. Their marriage has gotten colder over the years. Peter and Helen have two teenage children who attend the local high school. Clara has recently become a vegan, hoping to have animals treat her better. Rowan, who describes himself as an “observer of life,” obsessively takes photos of his friends’ necks. He is also desperately in love with Evan, the new boy at school, who is good friends with Clara. But Rowan is too insecure to approach him.

Despite their best efforts to live like the next family, the Radleys are perceived to be “a little odd” by their fellow villagers. They are very pale, and the amount of 50+ sunscreen they use is off the charts. The Radley kids are called freaks and bullied at school on top of their growing pains.

Only when Clara kills Stuart Harper, a classmate and a total asshole, who forces himself on her after leaving a party, we learn about the huge secret this “little odd” family has: they are vampires! Only Peter and Helen know about it. The couple became abstainers, vampires who choose not to drink blood despite their natural cravings when they decided to start a family, and they agreed it was best to keep the truth from their children.

But now that the shit hits the fan, Peter and Helen do their best to hide the dead boy’s body and then talk to their kids about their “family disease.” They introduce Clara and Rowan to the Abstainer’s Handbook, sort of a manual for vampires who want to live as abstainers.

Knowing that Clara may be a suspect in the missing boy case, Peter calls the only person he knows who could help them make the dead body disappear: Peter’s twin brother Will, whom Clara and Rowan never knew existed! A practicing vampire, Will is proud of his hedonistic lifestyle. And he has absolutely zero interest in fitting in when he arrives at Radleys’ home in his old camper van.

Damian Lewis is playing twin brothers Peter and Will Radley in The Radleys. Kelly MacDonald is playing Peter’s wife, Helen, the character I think holds the movie together. She is married to Peter, but you feel the sexual tension between her and Will as soon as Will enters their home. Helen does not want Will there, but she knows he is the only person that can help them. Hearing the first-ever conversation Will has with his nephew Rowan; we also know that Will is experienced in making dead bodies disappear!

And this is not the only help Will provides for the family. Clara is a suspect in Stuart Harper’s case because she is the last person the missing boy was seen with. When the young girl does not give the answers she is supposed to give to the policewomen who interrogate her, Helen finds herself knocking on Will’s van door to ask him to do something she called “transgressive, manipulative, unethical” in the past. This is a mom who is desperate to protect her child. Kelly Macdonald, whom I loved in the BBC drama Line of Duty, shines as Helen Radley.

Will’s ways to reset the policewomen so they take their leave without asking further questions fascinate the young Radleys. Clara and Rowan are pissed off that their parents lied to them their entire lives and are in awe of the power Uncle Will has on humans and the control he has over his life. The two teenagers have some new found self-confidence in being a vampire.

Rowan enjoys hanging out with Uncle Will who encourages him to feast on whoever he wants whenever he wants. And Rowan cannot be more oblivious to his dad who tells Rowan that his uncle is setting a bad example for him. Rowan responding that he wished Will was his dad should really hurt Peter and maybe even triggers him to give in a bit to his blood cravings.

So Will, slowly but surely, entices the entire family to bring out the vampire in them. Rowan steals a bottle of blood from Will’s fridge. Clara appreciates her fangs. Peter drinks a patient’s blood test. Helen craves Will. Clara may be off the hook in the missing boy case but it is total chaos at Chez Radley

In the midst of this mayhem, Evan is the only person who thinks of the Radleys as a normal family because of his own strange family life. Jared Copeleigh, Evan’s dad, is a former cop. He and Evan moved to Bishopthorpe after Evan’s mother left them. Jared is obsessed with vampires, spends most of his time on vampire forums online and the rest following his son everywhere to protect him from them! Evan is sick and tired of his dad not accepting that his mom left them for a new life and insisted that vampires killed her. What Evan does not know is that his dad has his suspicions about The Radleys.

Talking about the Copeleighs, in the book, Evan is Eve, a young girl. I think it is a pretty good move on filmmakers’ part to make the young Copeleigh a boy since it adds more complexity to Rowan’s coming-of-age storyline. And maybe it is also a nod to a community that had to live closeted lives for so long.

The story culminates into a hectic evening where Rowan finally scores a date with Evan at the local arcade, Peter has a romantic invitation from next door neighbor Lorna to stargaze together, Helen needs to talk to Peter about the past, and Will has an instant craving for blood. Yikes!

To be honest with you, I am not a big fan of the vampire genre. In fact, the only movie I walked out of in my whole life is a vampire movie! That said, The Radleys is brilliant!  The story is not about vampires who wear capes and fly around sinking their teeth to random necks all the time. Instead, we have an ordinary family that tries to get by who happen to be vampires. Matt Haig does what he always does in his books and takes a dark, quirky take on family life. The characters are very human. Believable. I find the extreme lengths Peter and Helen go to protect their children compelling. And the supernatural element is minimal. Thus, even if the vampire genre is not your cup of tea, certainly not mine, it is very likely you will enjoy the movie and relate to the characters.

Damian has mentioned in a recent interview that he thought of Mike Leigh movies when he read the script. I love Mike Leigh’s cinema. I actually watched his new movie Hard Truths this past weekend at the New York Film Festival, and I definitely see Damian’s point here. We have a suburban family that is not quite happy and the viewer is not quite sure about who everyone is and why they are doing what they are doing.  The semi-open ending giving the viewer food for thought also reminds me of Mike Leigh movies.

Peter and Helen Radley repress their dark desires as they try their best to give their two children a normal life. As they are trying so hard to fit into the village life, complete with white picket fences, birthday parties and boring book clubs, they face middle class social issues like uncommunicative marriage, midlife crisis, growing pains, bullying, fidelity and conformity. While these human aspects lie at the center, Haig adds vampirism to the story as “blood addiction.” So it is a metaphor for any kind of addiction; alcohol, drugs and what have you that can ruin a family. I find the movie’s dry humor fantastic. Peter complimenting on Lorna’s veins as though complimenting on her beauty or telling Rowan that Clara killed a boy as though she killed a mosquito are only two of the LOL moments and there are many more.

Now, it goes without saying that Damian playing a dual role in the movie is delightful for his number 1 fan! Both characters he portrays in The Radleys live extreme lives. As Damian says in a recent interview they “are the light and shade that is in each of us.”

Peter Radley, the abstainer, is your average suburban dad. He is an overworked village doctor. His marriage has seen better times, he is going through a mid-life crisis. He is flirting with Lorna, who reminds me of Betty Draper in Mad Men, the epitome of the bored suburban housewife. As he misses the early days of her relationship with Helen, Peter is trying very hard to ignore his instincts, and live by the promise he and Helen made to give their children as normal a life as possible. But even Peter loses control after Will’s arrival. The naughty twin is a constant reminder of the care-free, blood sucking days in Peter’s past.

Will, certainly the most colorful character in the movie, is a bad boy. A Professor of English Literature, he says that he is on a sabbatical of sorts. The movie does not get into details about Will’s sabbatical but if I remember correctly from the book, he was suspended by the university due to his improper behavior! In other words, his addition ruined Will’s academic career. Sexually fluid, Will is utterly reckless in pursuing his dark desires.

The twins’ physical appearances are aligned with their life choices: Will has long hair and has Bobby Axelrod’s swagger. He wears sleeveless t-shirts, leather jackets, and gothic rings. He has tattoos all over his body some of which I had a chance to see close up at Damian’s Rough Trade gig  last year – evidence below! Will is sexy. Will is cool. Will is the life of the party. But is he happy? I am not sure of that.

Peter, on the other hand, has a dad haircut, wears buttoned-down shirts and khakis. He is restrained. He is anxious. Definitely not cool. The sacrifice he made long ago is probably the reason for his depressed mood. But he loves his family and is keen on protecting them. So while Will is the one you may want to hang out at a party, Peter is the one you can trust with your valuables 🙂

Peter and Will are not twins in the book but I appreciate the filmmakers’ choice to make them twins in the movie, and not just because Damian is playing both roles 🙂 Twins are biologically identical. And they grow up in the same household with the same set of values. Then what sets them apart  and makes them different people in life are the choices they make.

Damian identifies with the twin situation through his brother Gareth who is less than two years younger than him.

“Just the discipline of keeping them tied together. I have a brother, we’re not twins, but he’s less than two years younger than me. We are very different, but we have so many similarities.”

I can imagine they grew up like twins thanks to the small age gap (though I believe in older child, younger child, middle child, only child psychologies!) and it is inevitable to have certain similarities when you grow up in the same household.

Watching the movie, it is obvious Damian had the time of his life bringing these diametrically opposed twins to life on big screen. And knowing how, in the blink of an eye, he can have a character switch from one mood to another, I am not surprised how seamlessly he goes back and forth between Peter and Will. I am in awe of his comedic timing and deadpan delivery. He should do more comedy!

In closing, huge thanks go to Damian for sharing my Instagram story with a note attached to it about his fangs – hilarious! The song that accompanies the Instagram story is Damian’s new single ‘Suck My Blood‘ that goes very well with The Radleys theme and is on the movie soundtrack.

The Radleys is now in select US theaters, Video on Demand, and  streaming services like Amazon and AppleTV, and in movie theaters and SkyTV/NOW in the UK on October 18. Put your fangs on and watch! And keep an eye on your next door neighbor 🙂

Author: Damianista

Academic, Traveler, Blogger, Runner, Theatre Lover, Wine Snob, Part-time New Yorker, and Walking Damian Lewis Encyclopedia :D Procrastinated about a fan's diary on Damian Lewis for a while and the rest is history! View all posts by Damianista