Suite 16

The title of the film, Suite 16 (sweet sixteen), works as partly ironic, in contrast to the dark and heavily erotic story, but also states the setting for the film: a hotel room on the Riviera. Suite 16 is about the meeting of two people: Chris - an unscrupulous criminal, who together with his brother and a friend have travelled to the Riviera to become gigolos, selling their services to rich, elderly women; and Glover-a 50 year old man in a wheelchair, as rich as he is unhappy. He is a bitter, impotent and disabled captive in his luxurious but prison-like existence in the hotel suite. The two are brought together when Chris' plans go dramatically wrong and force Glover, who happened to be nearby, to hide him in his suite, suite 16. A claustrophobic feeling develops when Chris realises that he is as trapped in the suite as Glover. What follows is a game between the two of them. A game where the roles alternate between who is captured and captor, where blackmail, greed and sex games set the tone. A young girl is drawn by chance into Chris and Glover's game. The tension between them becomes a demonstration of manipulation, slowly leading to a condition where sexuality, alienation and desperation become a link between them, a link which defies both class and generation-differences. With it's elements of immobility and voyeurism, the result becomes a meta-film, similar to, among others, Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window (1954) Among the actors is the Oscar nominated Pete Postlethwaite as Glover.It is a beautifully filmed story, with the camera stealing around in the suite, suddenly coming to a halt, becoming physical and static, as if to remind the viewer that he/she is also watching. The people behind Suite 16 hope that their film, with its complex and nuanced theme, will interest a wide spectrum of viewers, both critics and the general cinema-going public.