The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar & Poison: How Benedict Cumberbatch kept it short to score big

Just when you thought the collective genius of Roald Dahl, Wes Anderson and Benedict Cumberbatch had scaled its high with The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar, they served Poison.

For those who came in late, Anderson’s Poison dropped in streaming space as the fourth and final instalment of the screenwriter-director’s short film series based on author Roald Dahl’s short stories, which started with The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar and included The Swan and The Ratcatcher. Benedict Cumberbatch, who features in the first and fourth films of the quartet essaying unrelated characters, keeps it short and sweet to score big by balancing proven acting chops with signature star power, even as Ben Kingsley, Dev Patel, Ralph Fiennes and Richard Ayoade wonderfully add extra edge to the films.

Anderson’s four shorts are entertaining, and experimental, too, because the filmmaker has chosen to depict Dahl’s stories word for word on screen in the four films rather than recreate them as regular screenplays. In other words, the four screenplays are all about the ensemble cast carrying forward the plots by narrating Dahl’s written words rather than acting out scenes, with interesting use of sets and props to highlight the flow of events. The job of the cast would seem deceptively simple in such a cinematic experiment — you’d think all they do is recite the written lines from the pages of Dahl. The challenge, for screenwriter-director Anderson and the cast toplined by Benedict Cumberbatch, lies in prompting the audience to imagine what happens, through mere narration of incidents and minimum use of physical action.

For Cumberbatch, The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar was obviously a different challenge from Poison. As Henry Sugar the focus of his character was to portray a transformation, from being a ditzy, somewhat arrogant, wealthy man with a gambling addiction to someone who learns the value of philanthropy by the time the story ends. The outcome is feel-good, the impact a happy one — the sort the Oscars love. The brilliant 39-minute film is not surprisingly being hyped as a strong contender for an Academy Award in the Best Live Action Short Film category next year.

As Harry Pope in Poison, on the other hand, the focus is on an unpleasant disclosure right at the end. A taut thriller that uses every second of its 17-minute runtime, the film effortlessly demonstrates the hallmark Benedict Cumberbatch nuances, as the actor portrays being terrified for most parts but reveals a toxic side of the protagonist’s personality in the end. The impact left is a sense of discomfort after a frenzied narrative has unfolded a thoroughly enjoyable suspense drama.

Being Henry Sugar and Harry Hope over 39 minutes and 17 minutes respectively has actually let Cumberbatch carry forward his oeuvre as a versatile actor. The world of Henry Sugar is typically whimsical as Roald Dahl milieus often are, with a twist of the fantastical blending seamlessly with reality. Benedict Cumberbatch’s Henry Sugar is a wealthy man hooked to gambling. One day Henry reads a report in a medical journal about “The Man Who Sees Without Using His Eyes”. The report says the man (Ben Kingsley), an Indian named Imdad Khan, has the power to see through thin objects such as paper and playing cards with his eyes completely sealed and his entire head covered with bandage. Henry decides he must find the man and learn the trick of seeing without using his eyes, which would help him win at gambling.

The premise of The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar is as bizarrely engaging and enjoyable as Roald Dahl stories get, and Wes Anderson has decided aptly to present it as the first of his four-film series, before The Swan, The Ratcatcher and Poison regale with varied interplay of emotions. There is a reason the four films are best watched one after the other, in the order they were released online. Wes Anderson has increased the tempo gradually from the laidback witticism of The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar to the frantic suspense drama of Poison. The specific arrangement of the stories also lets Anderson reserve his trump card — Benedict Cumberbatch — for the first and the last.

Poison, like The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar, has an Indian connect, too, with Ben Kingsley once again acting out an Indian character. The story set in British India is narrated by Dev Patel’s character, Timber Woods. One evening when Woods drops by at the residence of his friend Harry Pope (Benedict Cumberbatch), he finds the latter lying ramrod straight in bed, sweating and stupefied with fear. Harry whispers to Timber he was lying in bed and reading when a krait, a venomous snake, crawled into the sheets and moved up his body. The snake lay coiled somewhere on his belly now. Timber leaves and returns shortly with Dr. Ganderbai (Kinsley), a local Bengali doctor. (For those who might find Ganderbai an unlikely Indian name, it is probably some sort of an Anglicised spin to the name Gandarbha). The tension in the story builds up as Dr Ganderbai, with Timber’s help, thinks of ways to get the snake off Harry. The anticlimax is reserved for the end when, it is revealed, there is no snake. Harry might have dozed off while reading and started dreaming, or imagined the drawstrings of his pyjamas to be a krait.

This is the point where suspense gives way to comment, giving scope for Benedict Cumberbatch to excel. The actor, lying motionless in bed till now, suddenly comes alive as Harry realises there is no threat to his life. With one sharp turn of words, Harry’s mood shifts from panic-stricken to racist scorn. Ganderbai casually asks Harry if there really was a snake, to which Harry rudely charges the doctor of calling him a liar. He also heaps a quick racist abuse on Dr Ganderbai, which underlines the title of the story — the real venom is the racist attitude and sense of bigotry inherent in Harry’s psyche, which come to fore once he realises he is out of danger. Poison reserves its sledgehammer blow for the end after a thrilling play of events, deftly rendered with controlled conceit by Cumberbatch.

Poison, in fact, has drawn interest of filmmakers and creative artistes down the decades. Dahl published the short story in 1950 and it was adapted for radio the same year. The story would really capture the fascination of cinephiles in 1958 when it was featured as an episode in the hit series, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, directed by Alfred Hitchcock. In 1980, the story was part of the British television series, Roald Dahl’s Tales Of The Unexpected. Wes Anderson’s cinematic style renders new-age sensibility to the story, as Benedict Cumberbatch toplines a cast in fine form.

Vinayak Chakravorty is a critic, columnist and journalist who loves to write on popular culture.

Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.

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