Synopsis

In suburban London, teenage Graham Young turns his fascination with chemistry and death into a series of poison experiments aimed at family members and acquaintances. After being confined to a psychiatric institution, he convinces authorities that he has changed. His release places him back in ordinary society, where a new job gives his obsession fresh opportunities and exposes the danger of mistaking intelligence for morality.

Factoids & Trivia

• The film is based on the real-life case of Graham Young, an English murderer known as the "Teacup Poisoner."

• The Young Poisoner's Handbook won the Grand Jury Prize for Dramatic Film at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival, sharing the award with The Brothers McMullen.

• The production was a British, French, and German co-production, with filming taking place in England and Munich between May 22 and July 15, 1994.

• The opening uses Henry Purcell's "Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary," a piece also famously featured in Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange. The musical connection reinforces the film's darkly comic portrait of a dangerous young misfit.

• Graham's pursuit of "Newton's Diamond" is fictional. The idea combines chemistry and alchemy with the old story that Isaac Newton's dog, Diamond, caused a fire that destroyed some of Newton's papers.

• Arthur Cox plays a factory colleague in the film and had previously portrayed the real-life counterpart of that character in a television documentary drama about Graham Young.

• The film's period atmosphere includes deliberate-looking scientific and industrial details, including a visible reference to "Mercury Arcs," a technical monograph connected with the history of electrical engineering.

• A soundtrack error places "Low Rider" in a 1971 sequence even though the song was not released until 1975.