In short: Mona Lisa (1986)

Small time gangster George (Bob Hoskins) is released from prison. His stay has - apart from years of his life - cost him the relationship with his daughter. His marriage was already broken before. Mortwell (Michael Caine in full-on delightful scenery chewing mode), the man for whom George went to prison, didn’t hold up his part of the usual bargain either, so no money and protection went to George or his family.

Now that George is released and asking to get what is his, Mortwell – not in person, mind you, he’s now clearly to posh to personally talk to the Georges of this world, unless he wants something from them, of course – does apparently try to make up for his failings a little by arranging a job for him. George is going to drive and protect high class independent call-girl Simone (Cathy Tyson) on her job working the West End hotels. At first, the two don’t exactly hit it off, clashing in class, race and personality, but they do develop a rapport and a degree of trust. Or at least, George falls in love with Simone while she asks him to help her out with the trouble that really drives her – finding a girl she was working with when she was still a street prostitute, and, perhaps rescuing her.

In my experience, Neil Jordan’s movies are either brilliant or completely unwatchable, and the relation seems to be about sixty to forty for the brilliance. The man’s work is certainly not predictable. Mona Lisa is definitely one of the brilliant ones, mixing elements and structure of British crime film with a sharp look at the way sexual exploitation is embedded in class structures, and adds an examination of the anxieties and blind spots coming with a particular kind of working class maleness, particularly when confronted with a woman like Simone who doesn’t fit quite so easily into any of the roles anyone wants to ascribe to her.

Instead of treating these things in as abstract a way as this sounds, though, Jordan truly looks at them through his characters. These, he treats with a compassionate gaze that doesn’t excuse the characters’ failings or absolve them of responsibility for their actions but understands how much of what they do follows the roads society has prescribed for them, and precisely how their life experiences shape their reactions, too. At the same time, Mona Lisa is also a cracking good crime film, one which deeply and intelligently argues with/against the noir idea of the femme fatale, a film about the vagaries of love, a stylish prime example of late 80s filmmaking that swings between the gritty, the slick and even the mildly whimsical, as well as an acting showcase for Bob Hoskins and Cathy Tyson who both give highly nuanced – and not at all showy - performances that are career highlights in careers rich in those.


I generally don’t like to use words like “masterpiece” at all (owing to my general dislike for the canon as a concept as well as for the idea of objectivity when thinking about art) but then, how else should one call a film that does everything perfectly right?