Rating: R | Runtime: 90 minutes
Release Date: October 25th, 2024 (USA)
Studio: Shout! Studios
Director(s): Sam Yates
Writer(s): Tom Bateman / Daisy Ridley (story)

You deserve everything that I’m going to give you.

Matilda (Hiba Ahmed) got the part. Mom (Daisy Ridley’s Anette) and Dad (Shazad Latif’s Ben) are ecstatic … but for different reasons. She’s excited because her little girl gets to have an adventure. He’s excited because he gets to have one too. Why? Because Ben always gets what he wants. He wanted a second child when Anette wanted to get back to work. He wanted to move to the country for the quiet to write when she loved the city and nothing new has been published since. He wants to meet the famous Alicia (Matilda Lutz), star of Matilda’s new film. And he most definitely wants to play the martyr through it all.

The title Magpie is thus an interesting one because the assumption is that it alludes to Ridley. She’s top billed. She’s on the poster. Yet the further we get into the film, her frustrated wife is way too laconic to be dubbed “incessantly talkative.” No, that description is much better suited for Ben—especially once he starts to turn on the charm in order to feel like he fits in with a cast and crew always rolling their eyes at the outsider interjecting platitudes none of them care to hear. He’s as superficial as it gets. An opportunist willing to disparage his wife for sympathy by projecting each of his own shortcomings upon her.

Director Sam Yates and screenwriter Tom Bateman (jumping off an original idea from Ridley herself—he’s also her husband) do a wonderful job painting Ben in the worst light possible. I mean, this dude is a Piece. Of. Work. Too busy watching Alicia’s leaked sex tape to listen to Anette as she asks his opinion on wardrobe for her important meeting in the morning. Too giddy to hobnob with celebrities to even consider the ramifications of leaving Anette to watch the baby during said meeting. Ben is so bad that everyone she talks to from her past is all too willing to allude to his shortcomings if not over-joyed to finally blurt them out in full.

Our knowing this truth is crucial to the increasing suspense once innocuous flirtations between Ben and Alicia evolve. Because Anette isn’t a rube. She may have stayed in this marriage despite his toxicity, but she sees what’s happening. She knows not to trust him. And she discovers what’s going on. The tension therefore lies with the mystery of what she’ll choose to do in response. Because it’s a delicate situation when young children are involved and the last thing she wants to do is feed into the narrative Ben has crafted around her. Anette’s plan must be less about exposing him than letting him hang himself.

I’ll be honest and say the truth of what’s happening is obvious. So obvious that a climactic flashback montage showing what we already know feels a bit smug. Thankfully, however, what it confirms is always handled with expert precision and entertaining gusto. Knowing therefore ruins nothing because the ride is too enjoyable. The payoff for rendering Ben as such a pathetic excuse for a chauvinistic man is that we crave his comeuppance. We want to revel in how he’ll digs his own grave while Anette silently watches and/or orchestrates from the sidelines. Ridley and Latif play their parts in this pulpy thriller’s machinations to perfection, so don’t be embarrassed if you end up standing to cheer the satisfying result.

---

Daisy Ridley in MAGPIE; courtesy of Rob Baker Ashton and Shout! Studios.