GEORGETOWN was buried at 373rd place in the 2019 crowd, sharing the fate of a number of worthy movies that year that didn’t get much attention, let alone any box office traction. *

Though it tweaks names and may fiddle with some facts, the opener disclaimer plays fair by telling us “This story does not, in any way, claim to be the truth. Nonetheless it is inspired by real events.” Fair enough. David Auburn (Proof, The Girl In The Park) wrote the screenplay based on “The Worst Marriage In Georgetown”, a NY Times article done seven years earlier by Franklin Foer. Foer’s piece covered the murder of Viola Herms Drath, a 91-year-old socialite, by her second husband, Albrecht Gero Muth, 44 years her junior.

‘Ulrich Mott’, a social climbing spider with outlandish pretensions of self-importance and gall enough for a senator, makes his way up the Washington D.C. cannibal chain, acting as a butler, posing as many things, including a Brigadier General in the Iraqi Army. Possessed of an archer’skill at hitting receptive targets for a smooth con—high-placed people who were smart yet gullible—Mott homes in on elderly, still vital ‘Elsa Breht’, a Georgetown hostess with money, status and connections. Her daughter ‘Amanda’ smells a wily rat behind Ulrich’s friendly mouse.

Christoph Waltz brings his vetted urbane sleaze game to Mott, and doubles down by making his debut as director. Vanessa Redgrave, 82, engages in her wonderfully natural way as the lulled, gulled Elsa. Annette Bening easily knocks back the smaller role as the dismayed daughter. Crazy story, sharp work.

With Corey Hawkins, Laura de Cateret, Ron Lea and Alexander Crowther. A quick 99 minutes.

* Select company at the bottom of the 2019 stack: Marriage Story, The Outpost, The King, The Aeronauts, Triple Frontier, We Summon The Darkness, The Irishman, A Hidden Life, The Wandering Earth and Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile.