My notes on Custom (2024)
Arty young folks Jasper (Rowan Polonski) and Harriet (Abigail Hardingham) aren’t getting by on their own output, so they sign up to make porn to order – fulfilling the fantasies of clients who pay them. You can tell by the lighting and art direction of writer-director Tiago Teixeira that their experience is going to be more uncomfortable and terrifying than sexy and ridiculous. It’s not a long film and there’s not a lot to it beyond a descent into suffering and pain, but the leads are good – Hardingham was the non-dead girl in the triangle in Nina Forever and Polonski recently played Michael Reeves onstage in John Logan’s play Double Feature (I’m sure he wears the same underpants in both productions). This is Teixeira’s first feature after a run of creepy shorts – Dog Skin, Molar, Accorde, Wrong Number, A Quiet Room in Walthamstow. It establishes from the outset where it’s going, then goes there – which makes for gloom but little suspense. You have to wonder how come these film-literate folk can’t spot the signs of being in this sort of storyline – haven’t they seen 8MM or any one of the hundred or so lured-into-online-torture movies?
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