4 Star

Rip Roaring 20’s High jinx.

Prolific television director and Miss Fisher series director Tony Tilse (Bananas in Pyjamas, Farscape, Ash vs Evil Dead) brings us the big screen version of the 1920s globe-trotting multilingual heroine
Phryne Fisher. Expect a lot of intrigue and derring-do.

It’s eleven years after the great war but across the world there is still unrest as Britain stalls on its promise to end colonial rule in Palestine. Jerusalem is a tinderbox as agitators are being arrested.

A young woman (Izabella Yena) languishes in prison while another woman is chased through the narrow streets of Jerusalem. As bullets ring around her head she takes to the roof tops to evade capture, but she is seen and has to lose some of her outfit to slip the authorities, and with a quick costume change she emerges like a butterfly from its chrysalis to become our dashing heroine, Miss Phryne Fisher (Essie Davis, Assassin’s Creed, The Matrix Reloaded). Using the rooftops she makes her way to Professor Linnaeus’ (John Waters, Offspring (TV Series), Centre Place) flat, to get information on a missing girl. But she cannot slip the Palestinian police force that easily and soon Sir Vincent Montague’s ‘Monty’ (Ian Bliss, The Matrix Reloaded) men are kicking the door open and arresting Phryne on charges of incitement to riot. Now with the knowledge of where Shirin Abbas is being held it is not long before she is out of custody and hot on the trail of the young woman to free her and get her to England, where her Uncle Sheikh Kahlil Abbas (Kal Naga, On My Dead Body) is staying at Lord ‘Lofty’ Lofthouse’s (Daniel Lapaine, Collusion) country estate with his wife Lady Eleanor Lofthouse (Jacqueline McKenzie, Deep Blue Sea) his brother First Lieutenant Jonathon Lofthouse (Rupert Penry-Jones, The Four Feathers) and their trusty family butler Crippins (John Stanton, The Julian Paradox).

The thing is, in rescuing Shirin things didn’t go quite as planned and everybody in England believes that Miss Fisher perished in the rescue and now they plan a memorial in her honour, even Detective Inspector Jack Robinson (Nathan Page, Escape from Pretoria) travels the 12,000 miles from Australia to be there for the woman he loved. Aunt Prudence Stanley (Miriam Margolyes, Romeo + Juliet, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2) is non too pleased with the turn of events either.

But we all know that Miss Fisher is indestructible and soon she is ruining the maids’ day as well as Johns’.

“I wrote a eulogy for you!”

With everybody reunited, the women are soon on the case of Shirin and her murdered parents, an ancient curse, a hidden village and glittering jewels. There is many a tangled web to unravel, will Miss Fisher get it all done within the tight deadline? With great locations and a glittering wardrobe Miss Fisher is a feast for the eyes.