Directed by: Graham Moore
Starring: Mark Rylance, Zoey Deutch, Johnny Flynn, Dylan O’Brien
Rated R, 106 minutes
Limitation, as any artist can tell you, breeds creativity. Whether it’s a poet writing verse according to the strict rules of a sonnet or a painter working with a minimal palette, artists in any medium often benefit from having arbitrary boundaries. “The Outfit,” the directorial debut from Oscar-winning writer Graham Moore (“The Imitation Game”), explores this truism in the medium of film, relying on only the most basic tools to construct a story. And while the film realizes the potential of its limitations, it also demonstrates that this kind of self-imposed restriction comes with diminishing returns.
Set in mid-century Chicago against the backdrop of the old organized crime syndicates, “The Outfit” takes a quiet approach to the mafia movie genre, focusing on a clothing cutter who makes the mob’s suits. British expat Leonard Burling (Mark Rylance, “Don’t Look Up”), trained on London’s Savile Row and obsessive about his craft, busies himself with his clothing, keeping his mouth shut and his hands clean. In most scenes he is tending to one piece of fabric or another, sewing or drawing or cutting with his trusty shears, even while crooks like the opportunistic Francis (Johnny Flynn, “Emma”) and the prideful Richie (Dylan O’Brien, “Love and Monsters”) discuss their dirty business in front of him. When inevitably Burling and his receptionist, Mable (Zoey Deutch, “Flower”), get dragged into danger, the only things standing between them and the wrong end of a pistol are Burling’s intent focus and quiet observation, the same skills that have made him such a skilled clothier.
Taking place entirely in the rooms of Burling’s shop—a reception room, a central room, and a workroom in the back—the movie, like Burling, possesses a narrow focus. A major character is killed in an ambush at the film’s conclusion, but we only hear about it from another character who, like everyone else, has made their way to Burling’s shop. We don’t even see the other side of the street, except in a few glimpses through the window, and even then the view is obscured by a curtain. Like a stage play, the film keeps the action contained, but unlike a play, where such confinement comes with the territory, the small setting of “The Outfit” gives the film a decidedly claustrophobic tension. It’s to Graham Moore’s credit that he makes the most of this uneasy atmosphere, wringing an impressive amount of suspense from simple ingredients.
Meanwhile, Mark Rylance, no stranger to the role of the awkward genius, anchors the film with a warmth that makes the small scale feel appropriate. Endearingly aloof, Burling’s forlorn expressions nevertheless hint at terrible memories, memories of the outside world that he wishes to forget. His voiceover, threaded through the movie like even stitching, describes the craft of cutting clothing with reverence, as if to refocus our attention to these finer details while more lurid conflicts make their attendant messes.
Unfortunately, Moore undercuts the film’s simple premise, cluttering the narrative with an excess of twists and turns. In the world of “The Outfit,” every character is hiding something, whether it’s secret ambitions or a checkered past or simply a body in a trunk. But after enough dramatic revelations among the small cast of characters, the advent of yet another big surprise starts to lose some of its heft. And despite all the sound and fury, by the end of the movie we somehow know less about Burling than we did at the start, his bold decisions revealing disappointingly little about his intentions. “I only just want to be left alone,” he says in one scene; his self-insertion into the mafia’s affairs is a head scratcher, then, a plot for the sake of having one.
That’s the risk of a film so intently focused on one man in his little shop: there’s nothing to hide behind. Other flaws also become more noticeable, from tacky dialogue (“One way or another, I’m getting out of here,” Mable asserts with all the personality of a styrofoam cup) to anachronisms that render the story almost laughable. “The Outfit” may be an engaging and unusual thriller, but it’s also frustratingly undercooked. Like the characters who keep asking Burling why he left Savile Row just to open up a neighborhood shop in Chicago, one can’t help but wonder why Graham Moore hasn’t set his sights higher.
Originally published in The Harvard Press on 4/22/22.