The Scariest Setting for a Thriller? A British Dinner Table
For filmmaker Alice Troughton there’s no more compelling battlefield than the dinner table. “An evening meal can leave you sweating and gutted,” says Troughton, the director of the new thriller The Lesson (in theaters July 7). “And the Brits have perfected it into a kind of exquisite torture.”
It’s not the only weapon in their arsenal. The Lesson tells the story of a powerful, manipulative, and haunted family that hires a tutor to spend the summer at their country estate helping their son prepare for exams. When Liam (Daryl McCormack) arrives at the home of J.M. and Hélène Sinclair (Richard E. Grant and Julie Delpy, respectively), it turns out he’s a fan of J.M.’s lauded novels (Liam is an aspiring writer, so it’s no small thrill), but as the plot unfolds, secrets are revealed in the dining room and beyond about the family, those best-selling books, and what really goes on behind the closed doors of cultural giants.
Though Liam is welcomed warmly enough at first, soon the Sinclairs begin subtly showing their stripes. “I call it death by a thousand cuts,” Troughton says. “Do you know which fork to use or what kind of tie to wear to dinner? Do you recognize the music playing? It’s about haves and have-nots and the tiny exclusions we do ruthlessly as a culture. But this is an opportunity Liam hasn’t had before, and he’s going to maximize it.”
While plenty of The Lesson’s tension does come from the clash between the old guard and the new, there’s no lack of good old-fashioned terror lurking as well. Like the haunting novel Rebecca before it, The Lesson makes a hulking character out of the house it’s based in, a Hamburg pile standing in for the British countryside (there are also suspicious staff and a mysteriously missing family member). “It’s a cliché, but the house becomes a character in the story,” Troughton says, noting that the art on the walls and other details are meant to act as Easter eggs.
The effect she achieves is more than just the sum of its parts. The Lesson not only offers a take on the classic theme of the interloper, it also examines how art and culture—both so often seen as making a person well rounded—can in fact double as razor-sharp edges. “Everything that happens in that dining room,” she says, “you could put in a Nancy Mitford book.”
This story appears in the Summer 2023 issue of Town & Country. SUBSCRIBE NOW
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