Attention, attention, all you P.D. James-fans out there! This is the very first screen adaptation of your favourite writer, produced by no lesser an entity than Coldcrest who for the first half of the 80s were the synonym of British cinema success.
But not with this film. Petit’s take on the first (of only two) Cordelia Gray mysteries proved to be a bit too… particular. Though not because of his changes to the plot which turned a story about killing for cash into a tale of brazen defiance and brutal punishment inside a family. What left audiences (at least critics) flummoxed was the unique tone Petit found: extremely classical and most respectful of the rule book for traditional detective fiction yet devoid of any country house coziness, or any interest in the mechanics of mysteries; Petit looks at everything from a bit of a distance, more observing than engaging, turning the whole project into a study of alienation at its most modern.
An Unsuitable Job for a Woman got published in 1972 but could just as well have been written in the 1940s or ’50s – Petit’s adaptation, all the while, is pure 80s at their melancholic while quietly rebellious best. A masterpiece in dire need of re-appreciation!
Olaf Möller