Review of The Green Knight (2021) by Ascreaming — 30 Jul 2021

High hopes, massive disappointment. This film takes a lot of effort to watch, but it's pretentious and dense and feels like it doesn't want to be understood. Almost like there is actually very little of interest going on beneath its overblown exterior...

Production design for some parts is very nice (love those crowns!), but frustrating in others (in trying to create a 'gritty' medieval world must we take the 'dark ages' so literally? Why does nobody own any interior lighting?). There is some very inventive cinematography, as any trailer will quickly demonstrate. Sean Harris and Joel Edgerton give enjoyable performances, but the screenplay does Dev Patel no favors and offers a thoroughly drippy, dumb, and unlikeable Gawain. Alicia Vikander produces a strange medieval English accent which wobbles between Geordie and Scouse—it's bizarre, and perhaps accidental, but actually quite compelling.

The mood is pretty grim, and it's the same all the way through, with all the joy and fun and humour of the source material sucked out and nothing compelling or interesting added in its place. This is not a fun film, but it's also not an action film or a thoughtful film. It has one note and you are bludgeoned with it throughout. Fundamental changes to the plot and identity of the characters subtract far more than they contribute and produce a confusing overall picture where motivation and meaning feel pretty distant. It's just a bunch of boring stuff happening quite slowly in the dark. The screenplay and direction don't seem to have any patience—nothing is allowed to build slowly or gradually. Every scene attempts to be a knockout of great depth and of solemn, weighty significance. The only way in which the film attempts to earn or justify that kind of impact is with screeching music and visual tricks, rather than with plot or character. There is nothing to hold on to, and no reason to care about our characters. Style is cool, but here it totally suffocates substance.

The score is melodramatic and bland, but worse than that is the fact that it's inescapeable. High-pitched acappella hooting is the recourse for every scene where the events and character of the film have failed to create any sort of interest or engagement.

A deeply frustrating watch. Since learning about the film I was excited and eager to like it, and I was ready to fight for it if it turned out to be a middling or misguided adaptation. But it really is a turkey. The CGI fox is one of the most agonizing failures I have seen on screen for a long time.