An Inspector Calls

An Inspector Calls (2015) is a BBC television film you can watch online on iFILM, adapted from J.B. Priestley's landmark stage play and directed by Aisling Walsh. David Thewlis stars as Inspector Goole, with Ken Stott as industrialist Arthur Birling. 86 minutes of cool, precise dramatic tension.

Northern England, 1912. The Birling family is celebrating their daughter's engagement when a police inspector arrives unannounced. A young working-class woman has taken her own life. The inspector wants to know why. He works his way around the dinner table one by one — and what comes out is that every member of this prosperous, self-satisfied household played some part in pushing her toward that end. Ken Stott carries the weight of a man accustomed to making problems disappear. Thewlis's inspector is something stranger: composed, almost omniscient, asking questions he already seems to know the answers to.

Priestley wrote the play in 1945 as a rebuke to the class complacency of prewar England, and it hasn't aged out of relevance. Walsh's adaptation keeps close to the text while using the camera to make wealth and privilege feel tangible on screen. Who Inspector Goole actually is — Priestley left that open on purpose. Watch An Inspector Calls (2015) online on iFILM.