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There’s a key and somewhat disturbing element to “28 Years Later: The Bone Temple” that might get lost in translation as it moves from the U.K. to the U.S.
In Nia DaCosta’s wild and bloody sequel to “28 Years Later,” much of the story is focused on Jack O’Connell’s Sir Lord Jimmy Crystal, the devil-worshipping and sadistic cult leader of a gang of murderous misfits. Their name: The Jimmies (among the members are Jimmy Ink, Jimmy Jones, Jimmy Shite and Jimmima). Their look: colourful tracksuits and long, white-haired wigs.
Many viewers — especially those outside the U.K. — may assume the distinct choice of name and appearance is simply to add a further splash of lunacy to an already bonkers film. After all, “The Bone Temple” also features a scene in which the gigantic, head-from-body-ripping Alphie zombie Samson dances to Duran Duran with Ralph Fiennes’ skull-collecting doctor while stark naked and absolutely ripped on morphine.
But there’s more to it. The Jimmies — and their disturbed, pseudo-evangelical head — take their inspiration from one of the U.K.’s most notorious figures, Jimmy Savile.
Instantly recognizable on home soil for for his eccentric appearance (tracksuits, white hair and plenty of bling), Savile was an icon in the U.K., a longstanding radio and children’s TV star on the BBC who was knighted in 1990 for his services to charity. But not long after his death in 2011, he was found to have been a prolific sex offender for upwards of six decades. Hundreds of allegations emerged, with many of his victims including young children and the elderly. The revelations, exposing how one of the country’s best known and most beloved personalities could abuse their fame in such a horrific manner, shook the U.K.
For DaCosta, who freely acknowledges that audiences in the U.S. are unlikely to get the reference, with Savile never a well-known figure Stateside, The Jimmies are there because the “The Bone Temple” deals with the “intentional perversion” of various societal themes.
“So there’s the perversion of dogma and religion, but there’s also the perversion of childhood memories and childhood media,” she says.
The zombie franchise’s crucial Rage virus broke out in the first “28 Days Later,” set in 2001. At the start of “28 Years Later,” we see the young Jimmy Crystal watching children’s TV right before he witnesses his dad become an infected zombie in exceptional brutal fashion. Crucially, this is it all set before Savile’s crimes would come to light 10 years later. So in Jimmy’s eyes in the alternative reality of the films, he’s still someone to look up to and — later — emulate.
“So there’s a world that ends in 2001 and for a character like Jimmy, whose life is destroyed in such an intense way, he sees these things — the ‘Teletubbies’ are on TV and his dad’s then body surfing on these infected — so what is the media he’s consumed?” she says. “Because of that, I think he uses these images and perverts them — and that was really important to us.”
DaCosta admits she first read Alex Garland’s script and didn’t think for a second about Savile (although she says she knew about him, having been in the U.K. shooting “Top Boy” when the story broke). For O’Connell, as a Brit of a certain age, it was a different matter.
For the actor, his understanding of the reference is also a comment on the “unchecked power” Savile was able to wield in his lifetime.
“He’s a hangover for Sir Jimmy of a time when popular culture existed — he doesn’t know what we know,” he notes.
“But he’s definitely there to be unsettling.”
English (US) ·