It doesn’t take a huge leap to draw parallels between the Covid pandemic and the devastation wrought by the Spanish Flu a century earlier. One actually wonders what has taken so long to make that connection onscreen. Joseph Schuman and Austin Stark‘s class comedy – the exclamation in the title suggestive of the tone – is less concerned with the effects of the disease than it us with the hypocrisies of the wealthy progressive liberals of the time. With its working-class saboteur anti-hero and its gimlet satirical eye, Coup! is a fun, brisk affair that feels like Parasite by way of Get Out.
JC Horton (Billy Magnussen) certainly wouldn’t vote for Woodrow Wilson for a third term if he could. The wealthy journalist rails against the president’s handling of the Spanish Flu crisis from the safety of his splendidly isolated island off the mainland. This distance doesn’t stop him reporting from ‘the frontlines’ of the pandemic, praising the proletariat dying bravely in the street as he clamours for stricter lockdown measures. His pomposity is pricked by the arrival of new cook Floyd Monk (a drawlingly delightful Peter Sarsgaard). For obscure reasons, Monk begins systematically undermining Horton’s authority over his family and his staff. The effect is like watching the French Revolution take place entirely within the confines of Downton Abbey.
Coup! isn’t exactly a battle of wits – Horton is so stupid he blunders into the most obvious of Monk’s traps – but it is a fascinating clash of personalities, with two sides of the same coin. Neither are operating from a sense of altruism or pure political convictions as becomes apparent. Both actors have tremendous fun with their outsize roles, the tone fixed firmly on the farcical. Sarah Gadon is also a joy as Horton’s wife Julie, whose prim and proper facade is a front for a secret hedonist just waiting for an excuse. It’s all played in the frothiest, jauntiest terms in a way that makes the more slippery politics at work in the subtext.
While it’s easy to mock the champagne socialist tendencies of Horton (and he is resolutely not someone to sympathise with), there’s an argument that Coup! can also be read as taking an anti-lockdown stance through the character of Monk. It’s more likely that the film is a warning against sticking to the partisan opposites of any issue. But when so many films are criticised for being a political screed with a narrative stretched over pontificating bones, Coup! is refreshing for a nuanced take on its themes beneath a light, jolly romp. The stakes onscreen feel low because of the tone, but the political division it satirises is no laughing matter. It’s a spoonful of sugar to help with some pretty bitter medicine.
Coup! isn’t quite as singular and distinctive as the films it echoes, but it does ultimately remember their golden rule; make a film as political as you like, but make sure it’s first and foremost entertaining.
Coup! receives its UK Premiere on Fri 8 Mar and also screens Sat 9 Mar as part of Glasgow Film Festival 2024