KVIFF 2026: Rain Catcher
London-set psychological thriller Rain Catcher looks the part, with gorgeous cinematography, striking actors and stylish direction. Unfortunately, it doesn't quite have the script, performances or originality to back up its aesthetic
It’s a shame more noirs haven’t been set in London, because that gloomy metropolis looks pretty great on screen. That’s probably the first thought that will pop into your head during the opening minutes of Michele Fiascaris’s propulsive thriller Rain Catcher. On a particularly wet London evening, a beautiful young blonde (Cassie, played by Iris Law, the daughter of Jude) and a statuesque photographer with incredible cheekbones (Miles, played by model-turned-actor Dudley O’Shaughnessy) rendezvous at a hotel where they’re involved in some shady business to bring down a record producer. Cassie is the honey trap who’ll coerce the mogul into doing something unseemly, while Miles is on the rooftop of the building opposite, capturing the misdeed on his long lens camera. It’s a slick opening – atmospheric, sexy, tense, and looks to be setting up an intriguing thriller. Unfortunately, the rest of the film’s silly plot and stilted dialogue soon kick in.
The sting doesn’t go quite according to plan, but the action swiftly shifts away from this crime story into the world of Miles, who has a side gig as an anonymous social media star who takes voyeuristic shots of unsuspecting Londoners and posts them online. He goes by the moniker Rain Catcher, and his pictures have apparently taken the world by storm: he has half a million followers on Instagram, and he’s embraced by people from the London art world who reckon he’s the new Banksy. But while entering his picture into a photography competition run by those art luvvies, he spots that a mysterious woman wearing a mac and an accusatory stare (played by Kate Dickie) keeps appearing in the background of his snaps. Is she a stalker, a rival photographer, a ghost? While all this is occurring, Miles has also been perving on Yumi (Jessie Mei Li), a woman who lives in the flats across from him on the Barbican Estate, and despite knowing Miles is a peeping creep, Yumi starts an affair with him anyway.
Is this film a crime thriller, a horror, a romance, or some sort of commentary on surveillance in modern society? I’m not sure, and the writers (director Fiascaris and Filippo Polesel) don't seem to know either. Some of this confusion of tone, themes and genre can be explained away when it becomes clear that our point-of-view character, Miles, isn’t completely compos mentis, but less easy to forgive are clunky lines like “I’m not a monster, I’m a photographer” or “You use a pseudonym? Now that is sexy!” Another issue is O’Shaughnessy’s bizarre central performance. He looks incredible – he’s a dead ringer for Jeremy Meeks, aka the "Hot Felon" – yet the accent he uses is so posh and the delivery so awkward and stiff that his character, Miles, makes Jacob Rees-Mogg sound like Ray Winstone.
Thankfully, Fiascaris is a better director of action than he is of actors. Despite the preposterous moments, Rain Catcher clips along at a breakneck pace and has style to burn, with Nicolas Winding Refn and Brian De Palma (particularly his films Blow Out and Femme Fatale) clear influences. Cinematographer Evgeny Sinelnikov impresses with his atmospheric nighttime photography and his sharp lensing of the locations around the Barbican. Kate Dickie also emerges unscathed, probably due to having little dialogue beyond a high camp villain monologue, which she absolutely devours.
Rain Catcher is a frustrating and often ridiculous watch, but don't be surprised if this team make something great in the future.
Rain Catcher had its world premiere in Karlovy Vary International Film Festival's Proxima competition