The Bedroom Diplomat: A Lot of Fuss Over Nothing

Is this worth your time?

Honestly? Only if you have a very specific itch for British comedy from the late 30s that hasn't aged particularly well. If you enjoy watching people stand around in fancy clothes pretending to be madly in love, you'll be fine. If you want a plot that actually moves, you'll probably hate it.

The whole thing feels like it was filmed in a library that someone accidentally left the lights on in. There’s a lot of posturing, and everyone seems terrified of breaking a vase.

Reginald Gardiner is doing his best, I guess. He’s got that frantic energy like he’s trying to keep a secret, but the movie keeps making him explain it to the audience anyway. It’s a bit exhausting.

There's this one moment where a character walks into a room and just… stops. They don't say anything for like, five seconds. I think the camera operator got distracted by a fly or something. It stays on them for way too long. It’s kind of funny if you imagine they just forgot their lines right there.

You can tell the director was trying to make it feel sophisticated, but it just feels stiff. It's not quite as charming as Three from the Filling Station, which had way more life in its little finger than this whole production.

The Ballet Angle

The ballerina premise is just a fancy way to get her into the room, right? Once she's there, she mostly just drinks tea and looks skeptical. It's a missed opportunity, really. I kept waiting for her to do a spin or something just to liven up the set.

• The lighting in the second act makes everyone look like they have a cold.
• The dialogue is so clipped it sounds like everyone is trying to save words for a rainy day.
• I’m pretty sure that same rug appears in three different houses.

If you're looking for something with more bite, maybe go watch Guns for Hire instead. It’s got a totally different vibe, obviously, but at least people are actually doing things instead of just sighing at each other over cocktails.

The movie gets slightly better when the characters finally stop being polite. But that takes about an hour to happen. By then, I’d already checked my phone twice. 🙄

It’s not a disaster, but it’s not exactly a hidden gem either. It's just... there. Floating in the ether of forgotten black-and-white cinema. Watch it if you want to fall asleep on a Sunday afternoon, I suppose.