The Draughtsman’s Contract (1982) – Film Review

Director: Peter Greenaway
Cast: Anthony Higgins, Janet Suzman, Anne-Louise Lambert
Certificate: 15

By Sarah Morgan

While some directors have a tendency to offer style over substance, Peter Greenaway has managed to combine both in a long and distinguished career.

Now 80 and living in Amsterdam, he’s a venerable old man of British cinema, a genuine auteur with an eye for a stunning visual as well as an ability to spin an enthralling yarn.

He certainly included both in his debut feature film, The Draughtsman’s Contract, which was originally released 40 years ago and has now undergone a restoration by the BFI. The result is a beautiful movie that looks even better than ever before – which is some accomplishment.

Originally produced for Channel 4 in the broadcaster’s early days, the film’s plot takes place in the late-17th century, during the reign of William and Mary. At its heart is the draughtsman of the title, Mr Neville, a skilled but somewhat unsavoury artist commissioned to draw 12 aspects of upper-class Mr Herbert’s family home.

“Manipulate the men”

Neville is initially reluctant to take the work, until Mrs Herbert, who is behind the commission, a gift for her husband to be completed while he’s away on business, agrees to provide him with, shall we say, regular ‘personal payments’. He also begins ‘servicing’ Mrs Herbert’s married but sex-starved daughter, who is desperate to have the child that will secure the family estate’s future.

Neville manages to upset everyone he meets via his brash and uncouth attitude, something he may regret after Mr Herbert is found dead in a moat, and the local gentry begin looking around for someone to blame…

Anthony Higgins plays the slimy artist with skill. He makes him physically attractive enough to be believable as an object of interest and/or lust, but just horrible enough to be repulsive, an unsettling dichotomy.

Janet Suzman matches him all the way as Mrs Herbert; the character and her daughter, played by Anne-Louise Lambert, are intelligent women trapped in an unhappy marriages due to the rules of the oppressive society in which they live. But rather than settling for a life of misery, they are not averse to using their sexuality to manipulate the men in their lives.

Watch out too for Hugh Fraser, later to be immortalised as the Belgian detective’s best friend Captain Hastings in ITV’s Poirot alongside David Suchet, and Lynda La Plante, in what must have been one of her final acting roles before turning to writing.

“Witty and entertaining”

But as strong as the performances are, it’s Greenaway’s screenplay (the film is basically a murder-mystery, albeit an unusual and enigmatic one) and direction that last long in the memory. While the former is witty and entertaining, the latter features some stunning visuals. The film may be set in the 1690s, but the images often look like something out of a Constable oil painting or a Turner watercolour.

Listen out too for Michael Nyman’s Henry Purcell-inspired score, which adds a frisson or two to Greenaway’s images; little wonder the director would turn to the composer regularly for the next 30-odd years of their careers.

Special features are aplenty, as you’d expect from a BFI release, with a documentary about Greenaway, made by his second wife, Saskia Boddeke, being a standout.