Moonlighting

Moonlighting (1982) is a British drama directed by Jerzy Skolimowski, available to watch online on iFILM. Nowak (Jeremy Irons) arrives in London with three Polish workers to renovate an apartment on the cheap. He is the only one of the four who speaks English. That small advantage becomes the fulcrum of everything that follows.

Skolimowski wrote the screenplay within weeks of martial law being declared in Poland in December 1981. In the film, Nowak catches the news from a television in a shop window — the military has taken over. He can tell the men and watch the job collapse, or keep quiet and control them through their ignorance. Irons plays the role with minimal dialogue, most of the performance built from evasion, small thefts and the particular guilt of a man who tells himself he is protecting people.

The script earned Skolimowski a BAFTA for Best Original Screenplay. It is a quiet, unsettling film about information and power — about what a person tells himself when he is the only one who knows. Stream Moonlighting (1982) online on iFILM.