excellent performances, great writing

Rating: 9/10 (1 May 2016)

Silence of the Lambs is a psychological thriller that positions its most dangerous (and interesting) character in a prison cell for much of the screen time, so his character can be shown through intuitions, subtext, hindsight narrative and general creepiness.
That character is Anthony Hopkins as "Hannibal Lecter", a cultured psychiatrist imprisoned among psychiatric criminal scum who longs for decent human contact or escape, except he himself has a history of killing people and eating the mutilated parts.
All of this is described off-screen, and the film doesn't indulge in unpleasant gore or cheap shock effects - the films main secondary character is Buffalo Bill, a man who applied for gender reassignment, but Lecter explains he was repeatedly denied on basis of his psychological profile. Due to repeated abusive childhood trauma, has become an anonymous, dysfunctional recluse who randomly assaults and kills women. Lecter suggests that his victimhood narrative contributes to his inhumane treatment of others, he drops other details and secrets about the killer but isn't fully cooperative about providing a complete psychological profile of the killer due to the indignity of his life in prison.
Clarise Starling is an FBI rookie, chosen for her attractiveness, to get information from Hannibal Lecter on his former patient and contact Buffalo Bill. The reverse-symbolism of having Dr Lecter behind bars whilst Starling is just beyond them is a brilliant bit of staging, as much of the film's subtext is about the gender coding of behaviour, identity and social roles.
Its also genuinely scary, but mostly on the level of dialogue and performance, Silence of the Lambs is rightly considered one of the best films of all time in the drama/thriller/psychological horror category, also the police procedural scenes are taut and realistic, or as realistic as you could expect. A second underlying theme of the piece is that the state ultimately protects its own interests, but is unable in the last instance to truly protect the public from crime.
There is a 'happy ending' of sorts in the picture, in that Starling, a lone female FBI agent in a predominantly male service, overcomes a male aggressor mentally and physically. An empowering ending that's more of a relief than an actual closure.
Silence of the Lambs is brilliant, but also the hubbub surrounding the films release and its subsequent awards greenlit some terrible sequels where this movie's lead, director and screenwriter didn't even contribute. Some audience members aren't aware but this film bares similarities to the previous Thomas Harris adaptation "Manhunter", released as a film in 1986. Later films in the "series" are a pointless cash-in on the famous character Anthony Hopkins embodies in this film.