Tom Sturridge

Tom Sturridge's oily Jon Dondon delivers Velvet Buzzsaw's epigrammatic theme -- "In the attention economy, celebrity is an art form." Unfamiliar with his face, I explored an early Sturridge film, Like Minds (2006, alternatively titled Murderous Intent), and found his patrician bearing and beauty alluring but the film muddled. Sturridge's Nigel plays opposite Eddie Redmayne's Alex, a strident English boys school malcontent who is accused of shooting to death his roommate (Sturridge). The story is told primarily in flashback with Toni Collette playing a psychologist who is tasked with determining if Alex did indeed commit murder; evidence is circumstantial. Nigel, an amateur taxidermist, is early on introspective and passive but quickly takes on the role of the aggressor, as he moves out of Alex's room and into his head with tales of legend and lineage.