Rent Baltimore (2023)

Excellent True Crime Drama - Baltimore review by GI

This low key crime drama, based on real events, is a quite intense and vivid story with a remarkable central performance from Imogen Poots. It tells the story of Rose Dugdale, an English debutante from a wealthy, aristocratic family, who rebels against her privileged upbringing, is radicalised at Oxford University and becomes an activist prepared to use violence in the name of her causes. The main one of these is her support for the IRA which she joins and is then instrumental in the planning and execution of a daring robbery of an Irish stately home where pricelsss paintings are stolen and held for ransom. The draw of this film is that the events are not given an embellished cinematic thrill ride, and in many ways it's a biopic of Dugdale. She is portrayed here as a contradictory character, sometimes a gentle, conscience ridden woman and at others ruthless and prepared to kill. Her struggle with these contradictions is where Poots excels in showing Dugdale as partially naive and immature and partially a very professional terrorist. There's a scene where Dugdale visits her partially blind and elderly neighbour who may have worked out who she is and she sinisterly considers murdering him. It's a quite unsettling scene. The film has a structure of mixing events and timelines that highlights the contradictions in Dugdale's motives and personality. This is a drama that draws you in and keeps you hooked and, in the main, it's Poots performance that holds the film together, she is very good here. This is a film that is well worth checking out.