Portraits of Dangerous Women review - quirky indie comedy

“I like laws and rules,” Steph (Jeany Spark), a jaded primary school teacher, tells a pet-shop employee – she’s adopting a cat, though that venture is doomed to failure - defensively. “They’re what separate us from the monkeys and chaos.”

In Portraits of Dangerous Women, a quirky, small-scale movie directed by Swiss film-maker Pascal Bergamin and shot in Surrey and Sussex, rules are broken in a mild way. No one is very dangerous here, though the intimidating, boiler-suit-wearing Tina (Tara Fitzgerald), the school caretaker, went to prison for money-laundering, taking the rap for her ex.

The film starts badly and confusingly, with an annoyingly perky soundtrack and a dog (we never see it) being run over twice, separately, first by Tina and then by Steph, who’s in the car with her dad, Jon, an art gallery owner (the excellent Mark Lewis Jones, recently seen as Donny’s father in Baby Reindeer). There’s a faintly Colin from Accounts air to the proceedings. All in all, in spite of an impressive cast, the movie doesn’t quite gel but it’s still strangely uplifting in a gentle way. Grudges are pointless, people turn out to be better than they seem and unlikely friendships win through.

Steph and Jon are bickering politely about some money she owes him when the accident happens. They, and Tina, stand around in the sunny countryside, looking bewildered, beside their respective cars. A belligerent witness, Ashley (Yasmin Monet Prince) appears out of the blue, distraught. “You killed my dog! You’re all going to prison!”

It soon transpires that Ashley is a wild card. A liar, in fact. She’s also a collector of found photographs (the film is inspired by Peter J Cohen’s Snapshots of Dangerous Women, a collection of vintage photos of women doing what were, at the time, unconventional activities) that she wants Jon to exhibit (both picured below). He’s not impressed (and Ashley hasn’t heard the word vernacular before), but never mind, he invites her in for soup with Steph, who drinks red wine straight from the bottle. She's in no hurry to get home to her unsatisfactory husband, who leaves soon after the cat-adoption episode. Their break up remains polite and restrained, with Steph helping him pack as they divide up their books.

A genial, low-key humour pervades. Steph is putting dishes away after supper. “Up there to the right,” Jon directs her in a loud, exasperated voice. “The right. I’ve done some rearranging.” Steph, in her flowery dress, gives him a narrow look. In another scene, Tina, stony-faced, eavesdrops on her young decorators – she’s having the school toilets repainted – having an argument.  “Grow up,” yells one. “Thank you for your wonderful advice,” says the other.

Ashley persuades Jon to take her on as his gallery assistant and she turns out to be remarkably keen, cultivating an over-confident landscape artist (Joseph Marcell) whose technique includes working with the frames attached, thereby splashing paint on to them. She is contrite about lying about the dog (it wasn’t hers, she made the whole thing up) and attempts to find its rightful owner, visiting a fairy-tale cottage in the woods where a benign old lady (Sheila Reid) gives her a photo album full of useful pictures. Meanwhile, some of Jon’s paintings go missing. Is Ashley the culprit? After all, detective work by Jon’s policewoman sister Cathryn (Abigail Cruttenden) reveals that she was done for a spot of breaking and entering in Devon when a teenager, though she didn’t actually steal anything. But there's very little at stake here.

There’s a drunken scene beside a food van, deep in the countryside, where the unlicensed owner lets everyone have free grappa. Somehow all four – Tina, Steph, Ashley, Jon – have formed a firm connection, which reaches its climax at a party Tina throws to celebrate her divorce. She holds it in the school assembly hall, without the permission of the authorities. The decorators bring their friends. Everyone dances. It’s even a little bit dangerous.

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