Which is your favourite Jonathan King? Is it the speccy proto-Jarvis Cocker of the 60s who had a worldwide hit with Everyone’s Gone To The Moon? Is it the baseball cap wearing 80s version, presenting Entertainment USA and writing in The Sun? Or is it the 21st century version, tirelessly campaigning against what he has dubbed the False Allegations Industry?
JK has been making independent films since his own trial in the early 2000s, as a result of which he spent a couple of years in prison (which he famously didn’t mind at all), but since being ‘cancelled’ as a result, his distribution is not what it once was. Indeed he titled an earlier film Vile Pervert in honour of his new-found social pariah status. Three Women, directed by maverick filmmaker Paul Wiffen and filmed on an iphone (but no less watchable than an extended of Hollyoaks - ok, much more watchable than that) plays as an anatomy of false allegations in the post-MeToo era.
Part documentary, part proper acting, part musical, 3W also contains the bawdiest of JK’s back catalogue. He is a no-hold barred Innocence Artist (copyright Dr Michael Naughton, Empowering The Innocent/University of Bristol), and his satirical style extends to waspish deconstructions wrapped within the hummability for which he is better known. Moving away from the more garish clothing tones for which he he is also known, JK’s round shades, white shirt and director’s goatee/beard look in 3W is great too.
The Three Women of the title may refer to Pamela Hardman’s character, whose family has been destroyed by false allegations; or also to the friendship between Jane Tulett and Charlotte Fortune’s characters - which contain a cunning twist later on. It may also refer to Grace Darling Smith’s trainee policewoman’s conversation with older PC Andre Lillis, which contains some bona fide laugh out loud moments (’What if they’re lying?)
Fellow PC Andrew McDonald’s character brings a counter-intuitive gravitas, obliged to trot out cliches and truisms - anything but the truth - and the young men of the piece, including Silas Franks, Harrison Franco and Callum George-Myles all deliver appropriately emotionally-destroyed performances. The difference between JK’s own exposure of the justice system’s ‘using the law to break the law’ phrase contrasts along generational lines against the vulnerabilities of the younger males, whose pleas of ‘is promiscuity really now perversion?’ permeate the more intense moments of the film.
With REM/Big Star collaborator and solo artist in his own right Ken Stringfellow’s new Circuit Breaker album, with a similar subject matter, also being released in Autumn 2024 this season is shaping up to be a seismic one in terms of Innocence Art. Jonathan King’sThree Women is fun, furious, quirky and insightful - not unlike the career of JK in totality.
By Sean Bw Parker
Watch Three Women here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2win7GpCdQ&t=515s
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