Film Review - The Critic
Ian McKellen proves a suitably acidic lead in Anand Tucker's muddled drama, but Mark Strong impressed me more in his supporting role
I have a soft spot for films featuring critics. Typically, they are wonderfully unpleasant characters onscreen. Think Peter O’Toole’s Anton Ego in Ratatouille (2007). Or the cast of critics murdered in gruesome pseudo-Shakespearean ways in Theatre of Blood (1973). In the case of Ian McKellen’s Jimmy Erskine in The Critic, he’s a fine addition to this list; an erudite but often scathing theatre reviewer for the Daily Chronicle in London, circa 1934.
Jimmy is an old-school establishment critic whose word can make or break careers. He’s simultaneously revered and feared, whilst he enjoys the creature comforts his lifestyle offers. But he’s also a homosexual, with a live-in secretary called Tom (Alfred Enoch) with whom he is in a secret relationship. Secret because in those days, being gay could mean prosecution and disgrace. It could also mean unpleasant run-ins with Oswald Moseley’s fascist blackshirts.
When Jimmy’s boss dies, the paper is taken over by the boss’s son, David (Mark Strong). Not a fan of the critic’s cruel wit nor his sexual proclivities, David urges Jimmy to tone down his articles. Jimmy refuses, and when he is arrested for indecency, he is given a month’s notice by David. Refusing to accept defeat, Jimmy hatches a plot to get his job back involving actress Nina Land (Gemma Arterton), whom he had previously reviled in vicious reviews. A mutual backscratching arrangement is reached: He’ll give her good reviews if she gets him what he wants.
What does he want? I won’t spoil the story, except to say the resultant tangled web of deception and darker turns is an uneven, somewhat muddled watch. Patrick Marber’s screenplay, based on the novel Curtain Call by Anthony Quinn, feels rushed and lacks focus. Indeed, the film has been tinkered with. It underwent something of a re-edit and re-shoot when it was acquired by distributors. What changed? Apparently, it had a more “sour” ending. But in any event, the film doesn’t quite coalesce in an emotionally satisfying way. I think the various deceptions should have been strung out for longer, for one thing, building better emotional tension.
All that said, the performances are good, though I was even more impressed by Mark Strong than by Ian McKellen. A master of understated and underrated performances, here Strong plays a character we initially expect to hate, only to feel pity for him as events continue, especially once he winds up an unwitting pawn in Jimmy’s Machiavellian machinations. One also feels rather sorry for Nina’s married lover, Stephen (Ben Barnes), and Nina’s mother, Annabel (Lesley Manville). It’s just a shame the nature of the screenplay and editorial tinkering means the dramatic high points don’t hit as hard as they ought.
In the end, The Critic works well enough, with McKellen and especially Strong ensuring it holds the interest. But great though Strong is, this could have been stronger (sorry, couldn’t resist), despite my penchant for films featuring critics.
(Originally published at Medium.)
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