Review of The Green Knight (2021) by Hesnotdrunk — 27 Sep 2021

Another art-house romp tarnished by its pretentiousness, with the goal to get the admiration of the critics while leaving audiences in the dust using vignettes of "artsy" sequences sprinkled throughout. Unlike the extreme edge of pretentiousness, director Lowery at least attempts to make the story watchable with bits of greatness that make it worth the effort if you appreciate cinema, albeit at an offensively slow pace (couldn't say the same for "Ghost Story", the other extreme of art-house trash that is somehow convincing modern critics to overlook the excessive pretentiousness in favor of a balanced approach). It is shot beautifully, very well acted, and actually well directed, but the pace and artsy vignettes are the death blow, with still shots and awkward sequences (a blindfolded woman just sitting in random places for the sake of "allegory", for example) that tend to take the reigns more often than they should. Head shrugging, to say the least, but it worked to convince the critics. Yet, as you can see based on the polarized audience reviews, anyone who doesn't buy into the pretentious notion of "I created an important work of cosmic art attempting to tap into the transcendent nature of reality" understandably found it a hopeless pursuit.

You are taking 130 minutes of an audiences time, it would be nice to take that into consideration when putting together the final cut. Otherwise, you're making the film for yourself, and giving it much more importance than is due (ostentatious obliviousness). Luckily the bits that are good make it worth the overall effort (if you are willing to sit through it).