The Critic <img src="https://img.icons8.com/ios-glyphs/20/000000/star--v1.png"/><img src="https://img.icons8.com/ios-glyphs/20/000000/star--v1.png"/><img src="https://img.icons8.com/ios-glyphs/20/000000/star--v1.png"/>

The Critic

There is an awful lot happening in The Critic, on screen and off. Ian McKellen is the central pivot as snobby theatre critic, Jimmy Erskine, his venomous pen the scourge of many playwrights and actors in 1934 London. The film is based on an Anthony Quinn (not that one) novel called Curtain Call, with apparently one whole plotline (about a serial killer) removed. Patrick Marber (screenwriter of Closer and Notes on a Scandal, as well as many other stage and TV credits) clearly decided to jettison that particular thread in favour of focussing on Erskine and the other players, including Gemma Arterton's actress Nina Land and Mark Strong's Viscount David Brooke, who has just taken proprietorship of the newspaper Jimmy writes for, The Chronicle.

Brooke doesn't really approve of Erskine's writing style, or lifestyle (he's a vaguely closeted gay man who likes a bit of 'rough trade'), so he's under pressure to keep his nose clean. But a scathing, nasty review of Land in her new play brings the first warning, swiftly followed by an arrest for outraging public decency. Erskine is dismissed. Of course, he takes umbrage and plots a honey trap of Brooke using Land as the flower. Betrayals, deceit, and the inevitable death complete the story. It's a surprisingly uneven script from Marber, especially the dialogue - there are some absolute crackers, mixed in with some really clunky stuff. Anand Tucker's direction cleverly lets the performers get on with it and the set design of 1920s London looks suitably austere (and not vast enough to stretch the presumably small budget - after the cast had all been paid, obviously).

Accordingly, the strength of The Critic is in its cast. McKellen's face is so haggard now that it almost operates in different time zones. His facial geography is unaligned, each quadrant doing its own thing at any given moment. Fascinating work. In one scene, Jimmy tells Nina how to act in certain situations and it reminded me of McKellen's great little 'Sir Ian, sir Ian, sir Ian...' bit in Extras. Arterton is also on top form. It must be hard for actors to play 'bad', as she had to do in the first couple of plays, but not ham it up too much. Still waiting for a role where she can show her full range - she's better than most of the stuff she's in. And Strong is probably best on the pitch. He always brings class but here it's gravitas that he leads with, and he's fantastic, in a very unflashy way.

There are some excellent actors that flesh out the film - Romola Garai, Lesley Manville, Alfred Enoch and Ron Cook amongst them - and David Higgs' cinematography is full of style. The whole film comes off as a bit melodramatic, though, and it teetered on the brink of farce throughout. It felt tonally askew for the most part, but the performances hold the attention when you're wondering if it's going to stay on the rails or not.

A couple of side notes: this was produced by (and dedicated to) ex-Everton FC chairman, Bill Kenwright, who passed away in October 2023. And could this be the last film I see at the beautiful old Windsor Cinema in Nedlands? There's some talk that the owners (not Luna Palace Cinemas, who lease the building) are looking to offload it, marketing the land as having "high density large density future redevelopment options". Hopefully, a campaign to have it heritage listed works out, otherwise it could be the end of this iconic building.

The Critic opens on Oct 3rd at Luna and Palace cinemas.

See also:

You'll find some similarities in Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989), and more still in François Ozon's The Crime is Mine (2023).

Comments

28 Years Later: The Bone Temple

I'm really getting into the 28UoTLCU (28 'Unit of Time' Later Cinematic Universe). This edition is directed by Nia DaCosta, and she picks up the reins from Danny Boyle and slots right into the landscape. The biggest takeaway from The Bone Temple is that Father Figure transference is rife, throughout both of these '28 Years' films, actually. If we choose the obvious link, Spike (Alfie Williams) is passed from parents, Isla (Jodie Comer) and Jamie (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) in the first film, onto two polar opposites, Kelson (Ralph Fiennes) and Jimmy Crystal (Jack O'Connell) in this one, and presumably to a certain returnee in the third installment. But there are also other relationships in the film(s) that explore the nature of dependency, and we have to assume writer Alex Garland, DaCosta, and godfather Boyle, have other, real-world settings in mind, not purely in the zombie genre. This manifests in the rapprochement of Dr. Kelson towards the 'infected', s...

Nope

Jordan Peele really doesn't flinch from a stoush. His first film, Get Out , took an excoriating swipe at racism and white privilege in the US. His second film, Us , delved into class divides and human rights. His latest film, Nope , takes aim at man's subjugation of nature, primarily for profit. The marketing of this film suggests a creepy, sci-fi alien invasion film, and while this is all accurate, there's more going on here too. Daniel Kaluuya, returning for a second Peele film (after Get Out ), plays OJ Haywood, a trainer of horses that appear in films or TV. His father, Otis senior (Keith David), is killed early doors in a freak accident....or is it? Well, no obviously, it isn't, but life moves on for 6 months before more manure flies. OJ is joined by his sister, Emerald (Keke Palmer), as the Haywood Hollywood Horses business, bereft of the old man's guidance and experience perhaps, begins to flounder. OJ has been selling some of the horses to Steven Yuen's ...

We Bury the Dead

I went along to Luna Outdoor last Friday to see a preview of local lad, Zac Hilditch's Albany shot, Tassie set zombie drama, We Bury the Dead . The premise goes that the US government has accidentally detonated an experimental pulse weapon close to the east coast of Tasmania, killing more than 500,000 people. A side note to this disaster is that some of the dead are rebooting. Daisy Ridley plays Ava, an American physical therapist looking for her husband, who was in Tassie on a work retreat. She volunteers to be part of a body retrieval unit but is told she must not leave Hobart. She meets Clay (Brenton Thwaites) and they manage to cadge a motorbike and hit the road south. On the way, among the rebooted, they run into soldier Riley (Mark Coles Smith), who has his own reasons for being out of the capital. In a Q&A after the film with The Curb's Andrew F. Peirce, Hilditch mentioned that the film started out as a pure grief drama, and zombies were added to the script later. Th...

The Quiet Girl

This is a great film, especially in the way that it manages to create something interesting out of a reasonably mundane synopsis. A young girl is sent away to a relative's house for the summer where she is treated better than at home. Sounds like it could have a bit of Rohmer-style youthful awakenings? Or maybe some gritty Loach-ian societal comment? Even perhaps a revenge tinged 'fear the youth' theme? Well, it's none of the above, and more power to its style. The Quiet Girl herself (Cáit) is a newcomer, Catherine Clinch, and she was apparently found via an Irish language school call out. She's incredible - meek, direct, no airs nor graces whatsoever, with a clear-eyed awkwardness. She's almost like a little female Bowie in The Quiet Girl Who Fell to Earth (no, not a film but I thought I'd italicise anyway). There are orbiting performances that complement her perfectly. Carrie Crowley and Andrew Bennet play Eibhlín and Seán Cinnsealach, the couple who tak...

Sirat

Sirat is the fourth film by writer/director Oliver Laxe and it's a bit of a head scratcher, not just about what's going on, but also why? It stars the excellent Sergi López as Luis, a Spanish dad looking for his daughter in the raves of Morocco. Laxe apparently scoured music festivals and street performers' patches to cast the other characters in the film, and he's unearthed some nuggets here. Steffi (Stefania Gadda), Jade (Jade Oukid) and Tonin (Tonin Janvier) stand out, but all of the non-pros certainly feel like they might attend crusty raves in a desert. In its favour, it certainly drops the shock bombs and some of the scenes are extremely tense (there's a bit of mountain road driving, for example, that tightens the knot). But for the most part, I found it noodly, pretentious and lacking cohesion. There were even a couple of scenes that were cut from the middle, allowed to drift away, and Luis's central motivation just disappears off a Moroccan cliff. The s...

Upon Open Sky

Upon Open Sky sees a trio of teenagers head north from Mexico City on a mission to find the trucker who caused the accident that killed the father of the two lads. Promising enough premise, unfortunately, this is a slight film, aiming for profundity. It opens with the build up to the accident, somewhere in the dusty Mexican bush, then the crash itself acts as a timeslip point to two years later. Fernando (Máximo Hollander) scours a car scrapyard, looking for something. His younger brother, Salvador (Theo Goldin), who was in the car when their father died, understandably mopes around the house, only rising to perv on their new step-sister, Paula (Federica Garcia) as she changes for bed. When mum and new step-dad announce they're off to Spain for a holiday, Fernando makes plans of his own to find (and maybe kill) the trucker. So off they go to a town on the US border in search of him. Now, this film could have been much better, and I'm kind of at pains to work out why I didn...

Best of 2025 - End of Year Report

Hi folks. 2025, eh? Bit of a prick, all things considered, but I reckon it was a pretty good year for films. My list was down from last year, I actually went 6 weeks without seeing a single film! Still time to see some great ones though, and here they are, from 10 down to 1. [Click on the titles for links to full reviews] 10. Hard Truths (2024) Mike Leigh is still punching them out, and this scathing drama reunites him with Marianne Jean-Baptiste (from Secrets and Lies ). She stars as a miserable, lonely wife and mother, constantly verballing those around her. Her sister is the only one who can put up with her. A tough watch but utterly engaging and though-provoking. 9. Of Caravan and the Dogs (2024) This was one of a few gems from the Revelation Film Festival in July. It's a documentary about Vladimir Putin's attacks on press freedom in Russia and how media groups tried to handle the situation. It's depressing but also filled with hope that there are still folks fighting...

David Fincher Top Ten

With Fincher's first feature in 6 years, Mank , due soon, I figured I'd do a top ten of his other films. Conveniently, he's only made ten features, on top of dozens of music 'videos', as well as some TV and a few shorts. But let's focus on the films. 10. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008) Where to start? Well, let me say that Benjy is the only Fincher film I hated. Full of heart-felt whimsy attempting depth, it misses just about every mark. This is trite bollocks with very little to raise it, save from the unimpeachable Cate Blanchett. Take her out of it and you're left with a certified steamer. 9. The Game (1997) Not a bad film, and made with some late 90s panache, but it just didn't elevate for me. Not much wrong with the cast, Douglas and Penn are usually watchable at worst. There are the requisite reversals and rug-pulls but maybe that's part of the problem - too much of this malarkey? 8. Alien³ (1992) I don...

The Teacher Who Promised the Sea

This was the film chosen to preview the Spanish Film Festival for 2024 and it's quite the heart-wrencher. Based on a true story, from a book by Francesc Escribano, it tells of Antonio Benaiges (Enric Auquer), an idealistic teacher from Catalonia, who takes up a position in the small town of Bañuelos de Bureba in 1935. This town is probably like many others of the time - conservative, religious and fearful of outsiders. It's also full of kids who haven't seen the sea, which brings us to the title. Discovering that his charges have no idea about the sea, Antonio promises to take them on a trip to the Catalan coast, and much of the film is about his attempts to get permission from their inflexible parents. The depressing backdrop to all this is the impending Spanish Civil War between the Republicans and the Nationalists. Antonio ruffles a whole pelican's worth of feathers, from the politically pragmatic mayor, Alcalde (Antonio Mora), to the Snape-ish priest, the suitably ...

No Other Choice

Writer/Director Park Chan-wook likes to experiment with his output. This blackly comic farce follows his previous, Decision to Leave , which, on the face of it, couldn't be more different. But regardless of the content or genre, Park fills his films with his signature cuts, which can be a touch showy but effective nonetheless. No Other Choice is a cautionary tale of modern employment, where everyone is competing with everyone else, executives and company bosses treat their workforce like scum, and people tend to compromise on the basics of society - in the case of our protagonist, Man-su (Lee Byung-hun), this means not committing murder. The film plays out like Kind Hearts and Coronets with a Korean David Brent in the lead. Man-su is a factory foreman at a paper manufacturing company, planning to protest the imminent sacking of some of his underlings, when he realises why his higher-ups have gifted him some expensive eel. It's not a reward, it's compensation for what...

Film Shapes

Search This Blog