Shallow Grave


Shallow Grave is a 1994 British black comedy crime film that marked the cinematic directorial debut of Danny Boyle with an original screenplay by John Hodge. It provided starring roles for the then relatively little-known actors Ewan McGregor, Christopher Eccleston and Kerry Fox. The film was not only the directorial debut of Danny Boyle, but Ewan McGregor's first cinematic film performance, John Hodge's first screenplay, and Andrew Macdonald's first job as a producer.
The production was funded by Channel 4 television, and the film was distributed by PolyGram Filmed Entertainment, while Columbia TriStar Film Distributors International distributed the film in other countries.

Plot

The film begins with a monologue to camera about friendship by chartered accountant David Stephens. David, physician Juliet Miller, and journalist Alex Law share a flat in Edinburgh. Needing a new flatmate, they interview several applicants in a calculatedly cruel manner, amusing themselves at the applicants' expense before finally offering the room to a mysterious man named Hugo. Shortly after Hugo moves in, the trio finds him dead from an apparent overdose in his room, with a large suitcase full of money. They agree to conceal the death, keep the money for themselves and bury the body in the woods after removing the hands and feet to prevent identification. They draw lots, and David is given the gruesome task of dismembering the corpse, while Juliet disposes of the hands and feet in her hospital's incinerator.
Unknown to them, Hugo is being sought by a pair of violent men, who are torturing and murdering informants as they follow Hugo's trail. The flat below theirs is broken into, making them anxious. The intrusion also draws the attention of the police, who are surprised when the three deny that they ever had a fourth flatmate. While Juliet and Alex spend part of the money to "feel better", David's fears turn into full-blown paranoia. He hides the suitcase of money in the attic and begins living there, drilling holes in the attic floor to watch the living space below. The relationship between the three becomes increasingly strained and distrustful.
The men trailing Hugo break into the flat, coercing Alex and Juliet to reveal where the money is. As the men enter the dark attic, David kills both of them with a hammer. David returns to the woods to dispose of the bodies. Alex and Juliet become worried about his mental state, and David becomes worried that the two are conspiring against him. With police closing in, Juliet seduces David into getting her the money needed to secretly buy a plane ticket to Rio de Janeiro. Matters come to a head after the three bodies are discovered in the woods, and Alex is sent by editor to cover the story. Alex returns to find Juliet and David have reached an understanding about their shared plans, which excludes him. Fearing for his life, Alex tries to secretly phone investigators, but he is interrupted by David and Juliet. The confrontation quickly escalates into a violent three-way fight. David reveals that he knows Juliet's secret plan to betray them and punches her, prompting Alex to attack him. During the battle, David stabs Alex in the shoulder, but Juliet kills David before he can finish the job.
With David dead, Juliet betrays Alex and tells him that he can't come with her. She then forces the knife even deeper into Alex's shoulder, pinning him to the floor, before fleeing to the airport with the suitcase of money. At the airport, she discovers that she has been tricked and cries hysterically: the suitcase is not filled with money, but with hundreds of headline clippings about the triple grave taken from Alex's newspaper. With no possessions except her plane ticket, and knowing that she will soon be wanted for murder, a devastated Juliet boards the plane.
The police arrive at the flat to find Alex still skewered to the floor. He is seen to be grinning. The camera pans down, following the trajectory of the knife and through the floor of the flat, to reveal that Alex had hidden the missing bundles of cash under the floorboards.
The film ends with David finishing the monologue that began the film before a sheet is drawn over his face and his body is slid into a drawer in the morgue.

Cast

In addition, the film's screenwriter, John Hodge, appears in the role of Detective Constable Mitchell, whose main duty appears to be writing: "Make a note of that, Mitchell.... Write it down."

Production

Shooting for Shallow Grave lasted for thirty days. The tight budgetary restraints during filming meant many of the props had to be auctioned off for them to afford sufficient film stock.
Boyle claimed that Christopher Eccleston was so afraid of getting locked in a real-life mortuary for a scene, he had to ask a crew member to stand in the shadows and comfort the nervous actor.
Danny Boyle said in his commentary on the 2009 Special Edition DVD and 2012 Blu-ray that Alex is not meant to be dead, so the line of Alex saying hello to the detective was added in post-production to clarify this.

Filming locations

The crew shot predominantly in Glasgow rather than Edinburgh, which is where the story is set, since the Glasgow Film Fund gave them a £150,000 grant.
Locations in the film include:
The film was the most commercially successful British film of 1995, although initially not widely seen elsewhere, the film grossed a total of just $2,834,250 in the United States. It led to Boyle's internationally successful production, Trainspotting, two years later. Shallow Grave earned Boyle the Best Newcomer Award from the 1996 London Film Critics Circle and, together with Trainspotting, led to critical commentary that Boyle had revitalised British cinema in the early 1990s.
The film received positive reviews; on the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Shallow Grave has a "Fresh" rating of 69% based on 48 reviews.

Awards

Track listing

  1. Leftfield – "Shallow Grave" – 4:38
  2. Simon Boswell – "Shallow Grave Theme" – 3:30
  3. Nina Simone – "My Baby Just Cares for Me" – 3:38
  4. Simon Boswell – "Laugh Riot" – 3:02
  5. Leftfield – "Release the Dubs" – 5:45
  6. John Carmichael Band – "Strip the Willow" – 3:12
  7. Simon Boswell – "Loft Conversion" – 5:45
  8. Simon Boswell – "A Spade, We Need a Spade" – 2:41
  9. Simon Boswell – "Shallow Grave, Deep Depression" – 4:49
  10. Simon Boswell – "Hugo's Last Trip" – 5:39
  11. Andy Williams – "Happy Heart" – 3:11