The Young Poisoner’s Handbook

1995 British film, directed by one Benjamin Ross. Caught it at the Angelika at the time, haven’t seen it since then but something reminded me of it again today and I learned from JustWatch that it is streaming on Tubi and Freevee. There are a small mentions of it on this borad and some positive reviews from Ebert and Maslin if that means anything. I’ve thought about it reasonably often over the years, the vibe and at least one scene really stuck with me, but I didn’t even try to go looking for it, reasoning that if it was any good it would have developed a cult, but maybe it’s time to venture back in. How to describe: something like Billy Liar with a lethal chemistry set.

feel like this was a movie I thought about renting a thousand times and maybe never did.

(A few small mentions)

Yeah, it seems to have fallen into a wormhole and never quite reached its audience for whatever reason.

https://imgur.io/Ow4ED3q?r

Dammit :)

Well, I always think of this Dave Kiersh strip about sneaking out to see it at the Angelika

https://imgur.io/Ow4ED3q?r

I used to have the VHS so I've seen it a bunch of times. It's pretty good but not a classic.

That cartoon is great, thanks!

Looks like reference from him here:
https://www.davidkiersh.com/teenage_comics
https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/56945a8ea12f44b2eb0af7f4/1591828944572-VKMWLH99OEN5G84IKN8T/32.jpg?format=750w

Hugh O’Connor’s Wikipedia page points out that this film won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance that year, which fact is not on the film’s own Wikipedia page.

How to describe: something like Billy Liar with a lethal chemistry set.

Coincidence coming up, the screenplay was co-written by Jeff Rawle, the actor who played Billy Liar in the TV series of the novel.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Liar_(TV_series)

This film was based on the life of Graham Young, one of the UK's most famous murderers in the early 70s.

This guy's name is tricky: Hugh O'Conor, one 'n'.

What was bad in the flask has been made good in the flask.

A rewatch confirms that, as previously stated by ILX0r Deflatormouse, this a good film but not a classic, more of a little, um, tasty bonbon. It moves along at a fair clip, some nice directorial choices and fine performances, particularly the lead. Not sure if being Based on a True Story adds or subtracts.

I remember being slightly shocked by a certain scene of dancing at an office party, which still holds up, mostly, although this time I braced myself in advance. I remember also being surprised at the time to learn that the non-English but still familiar song that they dance to had been number one in the UK.

All that is pretty spot on. I think it's mostly to their credit that if i didn't know it was based on a true story i never would have guessed.

Glad you liked the Dave K cartoon, I'm a lot more impressed with his stuff now than I was at the time.

his old stuff, i mean.

I was completely unfamiliar with hime before. I like that he really gets at the way some kind of awkwardness might feel without descending too far into self-pity but then dazzling us with incredible OCD technique like some others might do.

Him. Time for some new glasses soon I guess