The Disappearance of Alice Creed

Splicing the extreme in with the everyday, the best British crime flicks (Dead Man’s Shoes, London To Brighton, Red Road) are as comfortable with cups of tea and mundane conversations as they are with car chases. From its ominous start, in which kidnappers Eddie Marsan and Martin Compston wordlessly purchase the tools of their new trade – saws, soundproofing, a drill – we’re clearly in safe cinematic hands. Just as the pair turn an ordinary flat into a cell for Arterton’s traumatised heiress, first-time writer/director Blakeson twists this kitchen-sink setting into an excellent little thriller.

Staying just the right side of sadistic, so we need to know what happens while praying that it won’t, the film escalates in a series of Pinter-ish power struggles, mainly between the naïve Compston, his mentor and his captive, none of whom are quite what they appear. Though we’ve trod this ground a few times before, the cast provide an acting masterclass – particularly the previously unheralded Compston – and Blakeson shoots his whipsmart script with flair and composure. One shot frames Compston through a microwave door as a ready-meal spins prosaically in the foreground, a witty visualisation of that drab/dramatic dynamic and a reminder of the trap he has set for himself.

Although it unravels a little in its later stages, this is one of the best and most confident British debuts since the thematically similar Shallow Grave – directed, lest we forget, by the Oscar-winning Danny Boyle. Tense, terse and beautifully crafted, it plays out with all the dread of a deadbolt hammering, inevitably, home.