Sun 29 Sep Wed 2 Oct Thu 3 Oct
Dendy Canberra
10:45 am 2:00 pm 7:00 pm
Limelight Cinemas Tuggeranong
12:10 pm
Palace Electric Cinema
2:00 pm 6:00 pm
Director: Anand Tucker
Screenwriter: Patrick Marber
Production Company: BKStudios
Cast
Ian McKellen as Jimmy Erskine Gemma Arterton as Nina Land
Mark Strong as David Brooke Lesley Manville as Annabel
Ben Barnes as Stephen Wyley Romola Garai as Madeleine
Alfred Enoch as Tom Tunner Matthew Cottle as Graham Meadows
Beau Gadsdon as Freya Nikesh Patel as Ferdy Harwood
Rebecca Gethings as Joan Éva Magyar as Dolly Langdon
Jay Simpson as Slyfield Jacob James Beswick as Robbie
Nicholas Bishop as Richard Pugh Albie Marber as Lennie
Grant Crookes as Critic Debra Gillett as Mrs. Keefe
Reviewed by Frank McKone
“VLADIMIR: Moron!
ESTRAGON: Vermin!
VLADIMIR: Abortion!
ESTRAGON: Morpion!
VLADIMIR: Sewer-rat!
ESTRAGON: Curate!
VLADIMIR: Cretin!
ESTRAGON: (with finality). Crritic!
VLADIMIR: Oh!
He wilts, vanquished, and turns away.”
― Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot
“London, 1934. Jimmy Erskine (McKellen) is the most feared theatre critic of the age. He lives as flamboyantly as he writes and takes pleasure in savagely taking down any actor who fails to meet his standards. When the owner of the Daily Chronicle newspaper dies, and his son David Brooke (Strong) takes over, Jimmy quickly finds himself at odds with his new boss and his position under threat. In an attempt to preserve the power and influence he holds so sacred, Jimmy strikes a faustian pact with struggling actress Nina Land (Arterton), entangling them and Brooke in a thrilling but deadly web of desire, blackmail and betrayal.”
[ The Critic – Official Trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jryTK4UZ-6E ]
As critic of The Critic, I will not start by“putting the dagger in” like ‘Jimmy Erskine’ does as a fearsome attention grabber, condemning West End actor ‘Nina Land’ unreasonably. His real purpose is nothing more than maintaining his image – and therefore his job.
But, like Jimmy, I like to display my erudition with literary quotes. Estragon’s “Crritic!” is amusing – but in this case it’s also telling. In the film it is Nina who “wilts, vanquished, and turns away” at first – until her anger makes her turn upon Jimmy and demand an apology, in the street: in public.
A strong beginning for a film with lots of possibilities but not much in the way of probability – a bit like waiting for Godot. I have not read Anthony Quinn’s novel, which is described as “utterly pleasing from the first page to the last” by Sadie Jones, (Guardian). The essential problem in this movie is that the screenwriting is contrived, as if the characters’ actions, talk and reactions are predetermined to get Jimmy Erskine from his over-the-top, aggressive, unkind copy for the Daily Chronicle review of the performance of ‘The White Devil’ (the tragedy in five acts by John Webster, performed and published in 1612) through the ‘deadly web’ to his unlikely, unfortunate and unpleasant survival.
On the way he reviews fairly, Nina’s excellent acting as Olivia in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night – but only for his central self-centred purposes.
The film then seems to be too stagey, as if it is all being acted out as if it were on stage, and so never achieves the true illusion of reality which is what film can do, but acting a play cannot.
At the same time it is fair to say that the actors in this film are as excellent as we might expect. But the writing and directing leave us with unfulfilled possibilities.
For example, the song and scene At Midnight in the 1936 setting where the gay Jimmy and his ‘secretary’ Tom are set upon by Nazi characters was never developed as it could have been – especially when we see these groups in action in real life today. The role of 1930s police also should have been much more fully developed, raising issues about the law and the treatment of gays and women.
And most disappointing, I thought, was the shallow characterisation of Nina, as if women actors were so easily manipulated by their needing to be praised. Of course the issue was and is real, but the screenplay needed to offer other possibilities for the women. In real life I think of how much Helene Weigel achieved in acting in the 1930s – and probably in writing – in Brecht’s plays, and in becoming artistic director of the Berliner Ensemble in the 1940s. There is no women’s part in The Critic modeled on such a woman.
From a different perspective, you might see the movie as a fun variation of an Agatha Christie, but though there is a murder, there’s not the same engagement in mystery. We may wonder about Jimmy Erskine’s intentions early on, but then we see it all happening until we are not surprised, as Jimmy is not surprised, at Nina’s death. He is essentially cynical about what he does to engineer others’ actions.
This at least opens up our thinking about the nature of an unkind society. So I lay aside my dagger at this point.
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| Ian McKellen and Gemma Arterton as Jimmy Erskine and Nina Land in The Critic 2024 |
