In ‘COUP!’ find a sharp ‘comedy of menace,’ with Peter Sarsgaard and Billy Magnussen

It’s the early days of the 1918 pandemic when a mysterious new chef descends on a wealthy family’s estate in the new film “COUP!” The chef, played by Peter Sarsgaard, is a worldly and questioning sort with a mischievous streak who torments his employer, Billy Magnussen, a self-styled progressive journalist looking out for the plight of the worker from his gilded fortress. “I was like, ‘Yeah, and I’ll help make this thing with you,’” said Magnussen. Though both Tommy and his “COUP!” character are a little mysterious and odd, Sarsgaard insists he isn’t consciously toying with audience expectations in either case. “When people would tell me that the character seemed like he was up to something or, God forbid, said he was creepy, I truly didn’t understand.” “COUP!” debuted at the Venice Film Festival last year where it garnered strong reviews, but even so, it’s an uphill battle for a small distributor like Greenwich Entertainment to get something like it to audiences.