Hello Carter

• Karen Krizanovich
• 1 December 2014

Charlie Cox and Jodie Whittaker star in this so-so romantic comedy

Britain’s got talent and, at first glance at least, few low budget films show that better than Hello Carter. Starring as the lovelorn London loser Carter is Charlie Cox, soon to be American TV’s new Daredevil. Nimble romantic support comes from Jodie Whittaker (Attack the Block) and Annabelle Wallis (Peaky Blinders, Annabelle).
 
Homeless and jobless, Carter believes reconnecting with his ex (Wallis) to be the solution to all his problems. Finding her, however, isn’t easy: she’s changed her number and vacated Facebook. Through the canniest coincidence Carter bumps into her brother (Paul Schneider), a has-been actor with a hidden agenda, and soon Carter finds himself traversing a series of typical movie snags: dropped calls, strange interludes, twists of fate and ridiculous assumptions.
 
That Andrew Eaton and Michael Winterbottom act as executive producers, combined with the fact that this first feature is based on writer-director Anthony Wilcox’s 2011 short is important: Hello Carter had ample opportunity to get its shit together. Alas, although not charmless, it breathes no new life into the rom-com genre, being neither particularly romantic nor comic. Cinematographer Andrew Dunn captures the dank foreboding of the nation’s capital and yet the film seems rather too dark – dark even for its mainly night-time sequences.
 
It’s not all mediocrity or misjudgement. Hello Carter uses its London locations as well as any blockbuster and the smart casting choices include Antonia Thomas (Sunshine on Leith) and Judy Parfitt (Call the Midwife). This one-two punch means Wilcox may well be worth watching. Hello Carter also features the added treat of voiceover artist/actor Kerry Shale who channels the great Donald Pleasence in an evil doorphone cameo.
 
Selected release from Fri 5 Dec.