The Outfit – Movie Review Starring Mark Rylance

Director – Graham Moore. Writers – Graham Moore and Johnathan McClain – “Graham Moore is an American screenwriter, author and director known for his 2010 novel The Sherlockian, as well as his screenplay for the historical film The Imitation Game, which topped the 2011 Black List for screenplays and won the 2014 Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay” Wikipedia

Screen writer Johnathan McClain at the age of 21 McClain moved to Chicago where he wrote and began performing his critically acclaimed, multiple character, one-man show, “Like It Is.”

The film stars – Mark Rylance and Zoey Deutch – I found it on Prime.

Official Trailer – imdb.com/video/vi166183705/

If you have never seen Mark Rylance on stage or at the movie theater or on your TV at home, you are in for a treat. If you have seen Rylance in action, then you already know that. I’ve seen this film twhree times now and expect to watch it again and again just like I do with Bridge of Spies. Rylance, the consummate actor, draws you in.

The year is 1956 – Leonard (Mark Rylance), a master English tailor who has ended up in Chicago, operates a corner tailor shop with his assistant (Zoey Deutch) where he makes beautiful clothes for the only people around who can still afford them: a family of vicious gangsters. One night, two killers knock on his door in need of a favor – And Leonard is thrust into a deadly game of deception and murder.

The Cast

Leonard: Widely regarded as the greatest stage actor of his generation, Sir Mark Rylance has enjoyed an esteemed career on stage and on screen, and won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and the BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Rudolf Abel in Steven Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies (2015). He is also the winner of 2 Olivier Awards and 3 Tony Awards, as well as a BAFTA for his role in The Government Inspector. His film appearances also include Prospero’s Books (1991), Angels and Insects (1995), Institute Benjamenta (1996), Intimacy (2001), and Spielberg’s The BFG (2016). Rylance was Cromwell in the TV series Wolf Hall, based on Hillary Mantel’s novels of the same name. He is Cardinal Wosley’s right hand man, a phenomenal dealmaker, until Wolsey falls out of Henry VIII’s favor. Cromwell becomes part of Henry’s counsel when Wolsey is on his way to be tried for treason and dies. Cromwell becomes the most powerful member of Henry VII’s counsel and survives Henry’s death. Great video – watch it.

Rylance was born in Ashford, Kent, the son of Anne (née Skinner) and David Waters, both English teachers. His grandmother was Irish. His parents moved to Connecticut in 1962 and Wisconsin in 1969, where his father taught English at the University School of Milwaukee. Rylance attended this school. He starred in most of the school’s plays with the theatre’s director, Dale Gutzman, including the lead in a 1976 production of Hamlet. He played Romeo in the school production of Romeo and Juliet.

In The Outfit, Leonard needs to protect Mable his young assistant in the two person shop.

Mable: Zoey Deutch was born in Los Angeles, California. She starred in Everybody Wants Some (2016), Before I Fall (2017), Why Him? (2016), Flower (2017) and Set It Up (2018). She recently wrapped production on Buffaloed (2019) which she produced as well, and is currently shooting the series The Politician (2018). She can also be seen in Beautiful Creatures (2013), Vampire Academy (2014), Rebel in The Rye (2017), and The Year of Spectacular Men (2017) which she produced as well. Zoey’s mother is Lea Thompson.

The mob leader’s son has been shot. Leonard needs to save his life.

Intrigue and other gangs have gotten involved. The tailor shop has become the lodestone of night time activities with Leonard making fitting remarks. 

Competing gang head, La Fontaine: Amuka-Bird was born in Nigeria, but grew up in the UK and Antigua. She abandoned her dancing aspirations after suffering a back injury. After attending LAMDA, she joined the Royal Shakespeare Company. Whilst on tour with the RSC in Japan, she met her husband, actor Geoffrey Streatfield. In addition to her numerous television roles and the RSC, she has performed onstage with the National Theatre and the Oxford Stage Company, amongst others.

Quote

Leonard: “If we only allowed angels to be customers, soon we’d have no customers at all.”

Trivia – For this role, Mark Rylance was trained in tailoring techniques by the famous Huntsman tailors on Savile Row.

User Review: 

Mark Rylance is, as always, quietly brilliant. This ‘little’ film very much has the feeling of a stage play. There is only one set ? Leonard’s tailor shop. Leonard is in every event that happens. To go along with that, it has an almost claustrophobic atmosphere as the different Chicago gangster characters come and go, threaten Leonard and his receptionist Mable (nicely done by Zoey Deutch), argue, and leave again. Leonard basically has to outwit them at every twist and turn (and there are lots of twists and turns), and that is about it for the plot. Add to that the fact that no one is entirely who they seem to be and we get a fascinating hour and a half of intense “locked room” drama. I wouldn’t quite call this minimalist ? “Waiting for Godot” would classify as minimalist in my books. Its continually absorbing and yet built out of nothing but carefully rendered dialog. Mark Rylance is, as always, superb. He somehow builds a character out of measured dialog and changes in expression that might not be anything more than a raised eyebrow or a tightening of the mouth. Amazing to watch.

Rylance is the consummate actor – always cool, collected never obviously nervous, seemingly having ice in his veins, except when you see the love he has for the other characters. He simmers with untold depths, no matter which character he plays in whatever production. You trust him to keep worlds hidden in his devious (?) mind. He tells so much, but never all of it.

As of right now, there have been 333 IMDB reviews written by people who have seen this 2022 film. The reactions of people vary, but I hope you enjoy the film as much as we have and long to see many more productions featuring Mark Rylance.