# Drowning by Numbers (1988)

### reviewed by
Pedro Sena

    FILM TITLE:               DROWNING BY NUMBERS
    DIRECTOR:               PETER GREENAWAY
    COUNTRY:                 ENGLAND ( 1988 )
    SUPER FEATURES:   Joan Plowright and the women.
    CAST:                       Joan Plowright, Juliet Stevenson, Joely
    Richardson
    MUSIC:                      Mychael Nyman

         !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I have vowed several times I would never see another Peter Greenaway film. And several times, I have fallen prey to his films.

DROWNING BY NUMBERS is a very hypnotic film in that you don't really know what is going to happen, but you get the feeling that the women will all win, and get all the men done away with.

This is BLACK COMEDY at its best, much like any of Peter Greenaway's films, which have a tendency to appear very philosophical and intelectual, though in actuality, they are just fun, and weird.

The three women are representatives of three generations. The matriarc of the bunch ( Joan Plowright ) does what she says, and the film starts by her drowning her drunken husband who is having an affair with the maid. And soon, the daughter has also drowned her husband, and later the young girl also drowns her lover, because he isn't man enough.

The premise of the film might just be that men, in general, abuse, and do not care for women. They like women when it is in their best interest, but at any other time, the women are secondary, and relegated to the roles of maid and matron. And in this film, they take charge and play juror, judge and executioner.

While this film could be considered threatening to the male ego, it really is also an attack on the female ego, and the lack of communication both sexes have almost at all times. They use each other for their own means, ways and ideas, and when they are finished, they are discarded. Men are notorious for doing that to the fairer sex. Well, that's not to say that the women don't do the same. In the film, both younger women do allow themselves to be loved by the male counterpart, but they are not all that happy with the loving, which is undoubtedly the underlying cause. When there are subjects and servants, there is disdain.

    And this film is full of it.

    FOR THE FILM BUFF ONLY.

    Pedro Sena, Reviewer
    Internet Movie Critics Association
    Copyright (c) Pedro Sena 1994

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