COLLIDER: Director Emma Holly Jones on the Regency Era Rom-com and the Toughest Scene to Shoot.

From director Emma Holly Jones and writer Suzanne Allain (based on her book of the same name), Mr. Malcolm's List is a rom-com with a mountain of familiar genre trappings — only it happens to be set in 1800s England, where the titular Mr. Jeremiah Malcolm (Ṣọpẹ Dìrísù) is a much sought-after single gentleman who finds himself in want of a wife. The only thorny aspect is that he's made a list of standards that any potential bride is required to meet, and any he finds wanting in some manner is quickly and summarily discarded. When Julia Thistlewaite (Zawe Ashton) becomes the latest woman rejected by Mr. Malcolm — and made a laughingstock in society as a result — she reaches out to her long-time friend Selina Dalton (Freida Pinto) to assist her in hatching a plot of revenge. The plan? Selina will present herself as the ideal potential wife, emblematic of every qualification of Mr. Malcolm's list, only to turn around and reject him publicly so that he can experience the same mortification. However, as Julia and her cousin Lord Cassidy (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) prepare Selina to become Mr. Malcolm's perfect match, Selina finds herself falling for the man she's supposed to ruin. The film also stars Theo James, Ashley Park, Divian Ladwa, Naoko Mori, Sophie Vavasseur, and Sianad Gregory.