Judy & Punch

I have never seen a Punch & Judy puppet show. I'm too young and/or too far removed from the United Kingdom. It is one of those things that hover on the edge of my cultural consciousness, alongside pantomime, Dune, Engelbert Humperdinck and Halloween. I recognise the name and some of its aspects (such as Punch’s crescent moon-like profile, familiar from Dad's magazines) but not enough detail to understand it.

Set somewhere and sometime in the past, Judy & Punch is a fictitious origin story for Punch & Judy shows and a revenge story for Judy. Punch is a marionette showman with a drinking problem, dreaming of taking the show to the big smoke, his wife Judy is trying to hold things together. The small town they live in has a witch problem. Of course, killing witches does not reduce the number of townsfolk discovered to be witches.

Leaving Punch to look after their baby, a string of sausages on the table and small dog Judy goes out to run some errands. Even a cursory knowledge of Punch & Judy will clue you into what happens next and to Punch's reaction to being confronted. Punch's inability to take responsibility for anything piles up the victims in a dark second act. Here the writer/director's inexperience led to an unsatisfactory third act. Reaching into the hat of worn-out Hollywood tropes, we get quickfire: "resurrection from (apparent) death", "rescue by Ewoks" (a secret society of outcasts living in woods), "wisdom from Yoda" (a wise old medicine woman), "pleasant interlude with the outcasts", "dream sequence", "ignore wise advice to take revenge", "rescue and revenge", "happy ending with idyllic social order established". Though there is a coda where the transition from marionettes to hand puppets is explained.

Underlying the film is an anti-alt-right message. Concentrating on misogyny, on emotional arguments over rational ones, on violence as a solution (though that last one gets undermined in the end).

Ian's rating 2/5