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Drowning by Numbers (1988) More at IMDbPro »

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26 comments in total

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19 out of 22 people found the following comment useful :-
Games, 22 July 2000
Author: tedg (tedg@FilmsFolded.com) from Virginia Beach

One woman in three bodies. Games about death, with death as a rule, and as a consequence. Life as this game and vice versa. The scoring of the game, the ruling of the script according to numbers. Sequential skipping through the numbers as a way of adumbrating the game to tell a story.

Another masterpiece from Greenaway, his most accessible in my view. But that makes it a lesser work compared to his others, because the story is perfectly comprehensible. One can see how his notion of structured visual allegory with narrative footnotes starts to emerge here. The latest I have seen at this writing is The Pillow Book where this is all so much more elaborate and integrated into the narrative. But this film still charms. I wish I could personally thank the financier.

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15 out of 18 people found the following comment useful :-
An unsung, all-time masterpiece., 28 May 2003

Author: bechamel from UK

Not much I can add to the rave reviews above. A simple-complicated-ugly-beautiful-puzzle-painting of a film, which demands repeated viewings.

"Drowning" is not for everyone - but look at the breakdown on that voting. As I write this, this film got more "10"s than any other number.

I'm not into lists, but if you forced me, this would be my number one.

Go see (or rather go buy). If you've seen it before, see it again - new layers reveal themselves even now.

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10 out of 12 people found the following comment useful :-
An intriguing puzzle that's fun to decipher, 15 August 1999

Author: Afracious from England

This is a picture that offers so much to the viewer. It is beautiful, but also, at times, grotesque. It is intriguing and complex, and covers a cornucopia of subjects. The film has an elegant Englishness about it. It is a film that always requires your attention and one that you will want to return to.

The film begins with a young girl (adorned in a dress from Velazquez's painting Las Meninas) who is skipping and counting stars, 100 of them (some of these stars have Greenaway names like Hoyten, Luper and Spica). She is the film's navigator.

The story is about three women, all with the same name, Cissie Colpitts, each from different age groups, who have something in common, they each murder their husbands by drowning them. They escape punishment from this by consenting to the needs of an amorous coroner, Madgett. Madgett's young son, Smut, tells us about different games, each of them rather odd. The film has a wonderful surreal feel to it. For instance, a man and a woman on bicycles collide with two dead cows, but it hardly perturbs them. Throughout the film there are the numbers 1 to 100 placed in ascending order on display in some peculiar positions. It's a fascinating riddle.

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8 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
Works on many, many levels, 30 January 2005

Author: hrothgar19 from UK

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

There are some rare films where you discover something new each time you watch, and this is such a case. Initially you might watch it for the simple fairy-tale story (like all good fairy tales, there is repetition and a good deal of nasty goings-on). Then you might try to spot the ascending numbers that are sometimes obvious in the frame, sometimes spoken by the characters or sometimes really obscure (can you spot 86?). You may wonder whether any of the games - some of which are brilliantly conceived, like The Great Death Game - have ever really been played, or whether they are just products of Greenaway's imagination. Then you start seeing strange connections, like the one between the water tower conspirators' names - all from the apocryphal last words of famous people - and the way each of the Cissies destroys an object symbolic of her husband's occupation at the time of each murder.

Even after ten viewings, the film will still have you wondering. The star names at the beginning, for example, contain other Greenaway characters and "Adnams", which is the Suffolk brewer based in Southwold (the Skipping Girl's home is a real Southwold house, by the way, called Seaview House, although there is no Amsterdam Road!).

Ultimately the characters' motives are the hardest to understand. Each of the three Cissies (mother, daughter and niece) encourages the next to dispose of her unsatisfactory husband, with Madgett used as a pawn to cover up the murders. However, there are several strong suggestions that a fifth person is behind the whole plot, with its twin themes of counting and death. There is a twist at the end, however, that means things don't quite work out as intended.

It's fantastic and surreal to look at, with the typical garishly coloured and deliberately over-lit scenes used by Greenaway in his other films, and quite affecting, although it's hard to feel sympathy for many of the characters involved. I give it 10/10 for its sheer uniqueness and ability to make the viewer think.

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8 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
Good surprise., 5 December 2001
Author: arkadin-1 (arkadin@freemail.hu) from Budapest, Hungary

In "Drowning by Numbers" Peter Greenaway managed to find the thin line between the art movies and the audience-pleasing comedies. His other films, like "The Draughtsman's Contract" are visually arresting but very hard to understand and to stay with. I worried a little bit before I sat down watching this film but I spent a cheerful evening in front of the TV. Hilarious dialogues and monologues are matched with Sacha Vierny's beautiful photography and Greenaway's distinctive and moody sets and atmosphere. Plowright, Stevenson and Richardson are equally terrific, not to mention Bernard Hill as the corny coroner. The debuting Jason Edwards is one of the highlights of the film. His strange behaviour and explanations of the newly invented games are the funniest moments in the film. The final scene is one of the most bizarre closing ever put on screen. Unfortunately, this film was faded by the other commercially successful English films of the late 80s, early 90s (e.g. The Fish Called: Wanda), but if you have the opportunity to watch this film don't miss it. It's highly recommended.

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10 out of 14 people found the following comment useful :-
Quirky, eccentric, engaging, 5 November 1998
Author: Scoopy from Budapest

I was ready to shut this movie off during the opening credits. A young girl skips rope as she names the stars in the cadence of her count 13-Rigel, 14- get it? Now you'd think most filmmakers would pick up this little symbol at a point near its end, but not Peter Greenaway. We see the whole count. I nearly fell asleep before the movie title appeared.

I'm glad I didn't. This is one weird movie, but a charming entertainment. The counting to 100 in the rope-jump prefigures the appearance of the numbers one through a hundred in sequence throughout the movie. It's fun after a while to see if you can spot them or to predict their appearance.

The plot, such as it is, centers around three women with the same name who all drown their husbands, with the assistance of the coroner, an inveterate gamesman. The other main character is the coroner's bizarre number-obsessed son, who narrates, and actually does most of the numbering that marks the progress of the film. The main characters are all utterly amoral.

Does the plot really matter? It's a black comedy, and a puzzle. The people are real, but they aren't. "The play's the thing". The film is odd and personal. I loved it. You may not. It reminded me of TV's famous "The Prisoner".

Peter Greenaway wrote and directed. The script is dryly amusing. The visual presentation is poetic and rich with symbols. The camera angles are unusual, befitting the material photographed. The landscape is ethereal, not unlike Prospero's Island in Greenaway's The Tempest. Except maybe for Zefferelli, nobody creates a richer texture of visual imagery.

For me, the only disappointment was an unsatisfying ending. I guess this was how it had to end. I couldn't come up with a better solution to the puzzle, but I wanted the characters to fare better than they did, and the fate of the boy-narrator seemed unduly harsh.

Still and all, it was Greenaway's game, and that's how he played it. I'm not sure why anyone financed this film, because the potential audience is small.

But I sure liked it.

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11 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :-
My favorite Greenaway film... an underrated masterpiece!, 20 July 2005

Author: NateManD from Bloomsburg PA

I enjoy the films of Peter Greenaway. "The Cook the Thief his Wife and her Lover" and "the Pillowbook" are both films that are unique and visionary. Peter Greenaway is like a British David Lynch. Some critics get frustrated by Greenaway, claiming his films are self indulgent. I feel self indulgent is sometimes a good thing, especially when it comes to a breathtaking film like "Drowning by Numbers". The movie is one giant puzzle. There's a girl who jumps rope while counting out the names of the stars by number. Try to see if you can spot all the numbers 1-100 hidden throughout the film. The plot concerns three women, a mother and two daughters. All 3 women are named Cissy. Each woman named Cissy drowns their deadbeat husbands for being unsatisfactory lovers. Magit is the local coroner, and he agrees to keep the murders a secret. He makes a deal to claim each death an accidental drowning, if each Cissy gives him sexual favors in return. So 3 generations of women all named Cissy decide to lead on Magit the coroner without promise. Poor Guy! The coroner's son Smut, is obsessed with death. He plays strange number games and marks roadkill with different colored paint. He also likes to set of fireworks after a death. Not to mention, Smut is also obsessed with circumcision. He's never been circumcised and feels the need to take matters in his own hands, so to speak. Wow, the crazy things men will do for women. Also look for Nip/Tuck actress Joely Richardson as the youngest Cissy. "Drowning by Numbers" is extremely bizarre, and shows that life is a game made up of numbers. It's a brilliant surreal mind-phuk puzzle that you have to watch at least twice to comprehend. Peter Greenaway is very original, with satirical wit and a dark comic edge.

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6 out of 8 people found the following comment useful :-
The men play one type of game, the women another, 2 May 2002

Author: KFL from Bloomington, IN

Life's a game, death's a game. This playful little movie is all about games. If you're not a gaming-type person, you might not find this, umm, diverting.

The thoroughly surreal and tongue-in-cheek tone of the movie keeps us from taking it very seriously...all of which is for the best, since that way we don't confuse the plot with serious drama; the games the women play tend toward the homicidal....

Wittgenstein famously pointed out that there are all manner of games in the world--there's no tight set of identifying characteristics; games all have, at most, a "family resemblance". Greenaway has here collected numerous far-flung relatives in this odd family. You'll no doubt appreciate some of them more than others, Well, we all inevitably have favorites.

DbN and Prospero's Books (two very different movies!) are my favorite Greenaway films.

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6 out of 9 people found the following comment useful :-
Playful, quirky, and weird, 10 April 2003

Author: smatysia (feldene@comcast.net) from Houston

Such an obviously non-American film. I believe this was the first time I had seen Joan Plowright, and she was so good. Having seen more of her work since, I know this is no fluke. Everyone else was also good here, especially Joely Richardson and Bernard Hill. I won't go into any detail, but the movie is weird, weird, weird, and has a dark subject matter without being a dark film. Highly recommended for those looking for something different. Grade: A

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4 out of 6 people found the following comment useful :-
Warm, sad and funny, 8 September 2004

Author: kintopf432 (kintopf432@hotmail.com) from St. Paul, MN

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

SPOILERS

One of Greenaway's few genuinely warm films, despite its obvious morbidity. 'Drowning by Numbers' is frequently accused of misogyny, I can only assume because of the plot (three women 'revenge' themselves on their male significant others, etc.). This idea's a bit silly, considering how freely the male characters are satirized, but it's true that Greenaway has gender relations very much in mind here. The result is a kind of darker, art-film-ized version of 'The Importance of Being Earnest,' with the witty, nonsensical script and explicit references to games lulling us into Wildean amusement as we watch the Cissies quietly dispatch their menfolk one at a time. At least, for a while we're amused. Greenaway starts us off very much in the Cissies' corner; they are so likable, so recognizable to us, and their crimes are just the (admittedly unpleasant) means to their happiness . . . but before we know it, characters we care about start getting hurt. It's one thing when Cissie 1's drunken, philandering Jake goes, or Cissie 2's faithful but fat, priggish and inattentive Hardy does. But then Cissie 3's impatient but basically satisfactory Bellamy is done in (because he can't swim? really?), and soon we realize we no longer have the impulse to laugh. And when Madgett's story comes to its unhappy conclusion, or, even worse, when the children begin to imitate the adults' crazy behavior around the opposite sex (with horrific results), we see that Greenaway, ever the critic of humanity, is shaking his head sadly at sexual relations, not smiling at their folly. But he does it with such playfulness, and such a rich, loving cinematic texture--the season is fall, but the film is made summery by Michael Nyman's score and Sacha Vierny's cinematography--that 'Drowning by Numbers' is less a lecture than a game. Well, of course. 9 out of 10.

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