Coup! joins a string of recent films that use cruel comedy to critique wealth, entitlement and class divisions. In Austin Stark and Joseph Schuman’s film from 2024, the agent of change is a confidence trickster, who arrives at a mansion with every intention to take it over.
The English movie, which is available to rent from Prime Video and BookMyShow Stream, is set during in 1918. The Spanish flu epidemic is raging, causing Jay (Billy Magnussen) to isolate on his vast estate with his wife Julie (Sarah Gadon), his children and a handful of servants.
Jay is a journalist who rails against injustice and holds progressive views in public. In private, he is as feudal as his targets. Jay might call his servants “staff” but he insists that they follow his commands, which include being vegetarian.
Monk’s arrival upturns Jay’s world. Posing as a cook, Monk (Peter Sarsgaard) gets two of the other servants on his side. Monk starts rewriting Jay’s rules, exposing his owner’s hypocrisy in the process while also revealing the depths of his own crookedness.
The modestly budgeted film explores its ideas with judicious crispness. Coup! comes in at a crisp 98 minutes – a well-judged duration for Monk’s insurrection, Jay’s escalating hysteria and the chaos that engulfs the household.
Peter Sarsgaard turns in a wonderfully sly performance as the cook who merrily stirs the pot. Billy Magnussen is memorable too as the pompous but also clueless Jay. Revolutions are usually bloody and messy and so is this one, but it is fun too.
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