PEACOCK: this film has nothing to do with birds sporting large colorful feathers

If Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" is the grandmammy of psychotic cross-dressing mommy-obsessed murder movies then PEACOCK is a first cousin on the ever-so-slightly less demented side of the family.
Cillian Murphy stars as John Skillpa, a shy and socially awkward bank clerk in a small Nebraska town whose life is suddenly exposed to unwelcome public scrutiny when a train accident occurs - literally - in his backyard. John it appears, has been harboring a secret wife, a young woman called Emma who is considerably more graceful and friendly than her withdrawn husband.

What's soon revealed to us but not the townsfolk, is that John and Emma are the same person. Each morning Emma rises to hang out the laundry and prepare John's breakfast before retiring upstairs where she changes into John and returns downstairs to eat the breakfast and cycle to work.
While it rapidly becomes clear that John is wrestling with identity issues spawned by an unhappy childhood with a strict and unaffectionate mother, it's less obvious whether John and Emma are aware of each other's existence. And when the local prostitute (played by Ellen Page) reveals that John has fathered a child with her, the two facets of his tormented personality become locked in an increasingly bitter battle for custody of the boy.
This may all sound like a piece of grand guignol-style horror but PEACOCK is actually a very low key story which too often becomes a little too subdued for it's own good. The camera lingers over the small details, building the picture piece by piece while big events like the train wreck which triggers the unraveling of John's meticulously organised life are dispensed with in a momentary blur of movement.
While I appreciate the attention to detail I found that the action moved just too slowly to hold my uninterrupted attention. PEACOCK feels like a short story that's been stretched beyond it's natural elasticity to fit a pre-assigned running time. Director Michael Lander attempts to hold our interest with a plethora of star cameos (including Susan Sarandon, Bill Pullman and Keith Carradine) but once you've got over wondering why Josh Lucas would take such a small part in a small film there's still plenty of time left to start fidgeting again over the story's languid pace.
Murphy is impressively convincing in the dual lead role, imbuing both characters with a real  believability, which is more than can be said for Ellen Page who is miscast as the town trollope.
PEACOCK is an interesting misfire which would have benefited from a little more story or a little less running time.