Quick Links'Dot the I' Is a Mind-Bending Love-Triangle Thriller Tom Hardy Has a Small but Important Role in 'Dot the I' 'Dot the I' Is One of Tom Hardy's Most Overlooked and Polarizing Movies
After Tom Hardy made his professional acting debut in 2001 in the HBO war drama miniseries Band of Brothers, he landed what appeared to be his breakthrough career role as the villain Shinzon, Captain Jean-Luc Picard's evil clone, in the 10th Star Trek film, Star Trek: Nemesis, which became the lowest-grossing film in the series and brought the Star Trek franchise to a standstill, though Hardy received generally good reviews for his performance.
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Instead of launching Hardy to stardom, Star Trek: Nemesis was something that he had to move beyond, a process that began with a seemingly minor supporting role in the 2003 psychological thriller film Dot the I, which stars Gael Garcia Bernal as Kit, a Brazilian actor living in England who embarks on a torrid affair with Carmen, a dancer who's supposed to marry Barnaby, a wealthy but boring Englishman played by James D'Arcy. Hardy plays Tom, who appears in the film alongside Theo, played by Daredevil star Charlie Cox, as Kit's two best friends.
After developing as a beguiling love triangle for its first hour, Dot the I then unleashes a proverbial bomb through the reveal of a truly shocking plot twist that calls into question everything that came before it, as Dot the I, after starting as a romantic drama with comedic undertones, turns into a diabolical exercise in deception and manipulation in its last 30 minutes, in which no one can be trusted and nothing is what it seems.
✕ Remove Ads 'Dot the I' Is a Mind-Bending Love-Triangle Thriller Dot the I RComedyDramaRomanceThriller
Release Date January 18, 2003 Director Matthew Parkhill Cast Gael García Bernal , Natalia Verbeke , James D'Arcy , Tom Hardy , Charlie Cox Runtime 92 minutes
In the great tradition of romantic movies, Dot the I opens with an unmistakable meet-cute moment, which happens in a French restaurant in London during a bachelorette party for Carmen, a woman who is encouraged at the restaurant, as part of a supposed ancient tradition, to select a stranger with whom to share one last kiss before marriage, as a way of kissing her single life goodbye. Carmen, played by Natalia Verbeke, chooses Kit, an unemployed actor from Brazil, and their kiss, which lasts far longer than is normal, leads them to fall in love with each other, thus creating a love triangle between Carmen, Kit, and Carmen's fiancée, Barnaby, whom Carmen ostensibly still intends to marry.
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While this dynamic creates genuine drama and tension, especially with the perpetually insecure and jealous Barnaby, Dot the I also generates a definite romantic comedy vibe in the vein of the 1967 comedy-drama film The Graduate, as Kit aspires to thwart Carmen's wedding and take Carmen for himself, much like Dustin Hoffman's character, Benjamin Braddock, does with the pregnant Elaine near the end of The Graduate. Amid this romantic comedy mixture, Kit's best friends, Charlie Cox's Theo and Tom Hardy's Tom, seem to primarily exist in the romantic comedy tradition to provide Kit with unhelpful romantic advice.
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The only suggestion of menace in Dot the I during the film's first hour happens through the interspersing of creepy surveillance point-of-view shots, complete with heavy male breathing, which periodically stalk after Carmen, who suspects that she's being followed by an abusive former husband, who once wounded her with acid. Dot the I takes a truly dark turn when it becomes apparent that all the film's relationships are part of an elaborate deception, in which Carmen is the unwitting star of a psychological snuff movie co-starring Kit, directed by Barnaby and produced by Theo and Tom.
Tom Hardy Has a Small but Important Role in 'Dot the I' Close ✕ Remove Ads
With the deceptively minor role of Tom, Tom Hardy's performance in Dot the I serves as a catalyst for the film's shocking plot twist, as seen in a crucial scene in which Kit discusses his relationship with Carmen with Tom and mutual friend Theo in a London café. After Kit suggests it might be time for him to let go of Carmen, Theo, with Tom's nodding approval, urges Kit to emulate Benjamin Braddock in The Graduate and rescue Carmen from a seemingly unhappy marriage to the stiff Barnaby.
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When Kit responds that life is not a movie, Theo explains that virtually all real-life human behavior and dialogue can be traced to a cinematic source. Theo quotes a scene from the darkly satirical 1994 film Swimming with Sharks in which Kevin Spacey's character, ruthless Hollywood mogul Buddy Ackerman, makes this point. "Because life is not a movie," says Theo, quoting Spacey's character. "Everybody lies, good guys lose, and love does not conquer all." This heralds the revelation that all the events in Dot the I are, in fact, part of a movie, beginning with Carmen and Kit's first encounter, which was orchestrated by Theo, Tom, and their director, the thoroughly unscrupulous Barnaby, who went so far as to marry Carmen, entirely for the sake of his movie.
'Dot the I' Is One of Tom Hardy's Most Overlooked and Polarizing Movies Close ✕ Remove Ads
Dot the I, which grossed just over $300,000 at the domestic box office during its limited theatrical release, received generally negative critical reviews at the time of its release, as many critics expressed disapproval of the film's shocking plot twist, which critics found to be more gimmicky than stimulating, while audiences have generally embraced this aspect of the movie over the past 20 years.
One of the few critical supporters of Dot the I, which presently holds a 25% Rotten Tomatoes rating versus a 76% audience score, was Roger Ebert. In Ebert's review of Dot the I, Ebert expresses admiration for the film's ingenuity and performances while preferring the love story over the film's big surprise. Ebert wrote:
"Watching the movie, I went through several stages. I liked the first half perfectly well as a love story involving sympathetic people. I hoped they would find happiness. Then, well, there was a surprise, and I rather liked the surprise, too, because it put things in a new light and made everyone just that much more interesting. Then [there was] another surprise, and another, until..."
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Dot the I is streaming for free on Tubi.