Judy & Punch 2020

In Seaside, England, Judy Mia Wasikowska and Punch Damon Herriman are seasoned puppeteers, striving to revive their marionette show with their baby daughter (Summer Dixon and Scarlett Dixon) watching over their small, fragile dream. Judy’s deft puppetry draws in crowds, but Punch struggles with a drinking problem that shadows their act and threatens to derail every performance.

One day, while chasing a small dog that has stolen a string of sausages, Punch trips and accidentally hurls their baby out a high window. Judy is incredulous as Punch calmly admits the accident; she strikes him in disbelief, and he retaliates with his walking stick, beating her in a brutal, brutal moment of rage.

Believing he has killed Judy, Punch hides her bloodied body, reports the crime to the local constable, and pins the blame on their two elderly servants, Scaramouche Terry Norris and Maude, who had raised Judy since she was a child. The pair are arrested, and Punch rouses the town into a hanging frenzy, persuading everyone of their guilt and even a rumored cannibalism of his daughter. Town ruffians ride roughshod over the old couple, extracting false confessions to fuel the mob’s bloodlust.

Judy is found unconscious and transported to a forest outcast enclave, tended by Dr. Goodtime Gillian Jones. She regains consciousness, and her waking scream echoes across the land. Vengeance kindles inside her, and part of that vendetta shapes itself as terror aimed at Punch. She slips back into town to spy on Punch, who performs a puppet show with his assistant Polly Lucy Velik. The puppets misbehave on stage, the crowd’s patience frays, and Punch’s temper explodes into a brawl.

Judy learns that her servants are scheduled to be hanged the next day, and she confronts Punch in their house with a looming, ghostly puppet demanding repentance and a clearing of the falsely accused couple, or she promises a harsher fate will befall him.

On the hanging scaffold, Punch appears to recant, claiming the pair are not guilty, but his speech inflames the crowd with a sense that the Devil himself is being judged. When the trapdoor lever is pulled, the ropes give way, and the two are dropped. Judy and the forest troupe arrive just in time, and Punch is captured; he is lashed to the scaffold. With a large axe in hand, Judy delivers the punishment she believes serious crimes warrant, severing his hands.

Years pass, and Judy lives at home with her former outcasts and their two elderly servants. Punch ends up confined to a padded-cell insane asylum, where he performs a deranged Punch and Judy puppet show using his stumps as crude puppets, watched by a handful of mad inmates through the barred windows.