Drowning by Numbers

Drowning by Numbers (1988) is a British crime-comedy from director Peter Greenaway, available to watch online on iFILM. Three women — grandmother, daughter and granddaughter, all named Cissie Colpitts — drown their husbands, one after another. The local coroner, Henry Madgett, is in love with each of them and obligingly certifies every death as accidental.

Joan Plowright, Juliet Stevenson and Joely Richardson play the three Cissies with no trace of camp or theatrical menace — just the quiet practicality of women who have settled on a solution. Bernard Hill as Madgett slowly recognises that his affection has made him an accessory. Meanwhile, Greenaway hides the numbers 1 through 100 inside every scene in sequence, and Madgett's young son acts out a series of invented games whose rules mirror what the adults are doing above his head.

Cinematographer Sacha Vierny gives every frame the look of a Dutch still life — lush, composed and slightly dead. Greenaway regular Michael Nyman's repetitive score locks the film into its own strange rhythm. For viewers who like cinema that treats structure as meaning rather than backdrop, this one hits differently. Stream Drowning by Numbers (1988) online on iFILM.