THE CRITIC - Mark Reviews Movies

The Critic, Greenwich Entertainment

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Review by Mark Dujsik | September 12, 2024

The Critic recalls a time when newspapers and, yes, critics actually mattered. It's London in 1939, only months before the entire world will be caught up in war, but apart from men in black shirts patrolling the streets and murmurs of racism or antisemitism in private, there's little sign of what's to come. What matters to these characters is the ability to wield as much power and influence as possible in their little sphere—with or, usually, without any sense of responsibility.

The title character is Jimmy Erskine (Ian McKellen), the drama critic at a popular and apparently right-leaning paper in the city. Jimmy, though, has no use or concern for politics, even though a significant area of his life has been defined by them. He's a gay man, living in secret because of the laws of the country at the time, although it's not much of a mystery. He has a live-in secretary, a man named Tom (Alfred Enoch), and often wanders through a park at night, looking for men waiting for casual encounters. There's peril for him with these situations, since the cops are also waiting for any slip, but Jimmy likes the danger.

Patrick Marber's screenplay, adapted from Anthony Quinn's novel Curtain Call, is surprisingly rich in its character details, which extend beyond the eponymous theater critic and make the story unsatisfying when it starts down the path of a thriller. We understand why these characters do what they do, to be sure, even as those actions increase in immorality and illegality. Something is lost here, though, when the story becomes less about the characters and more about underhanded conspiracies, professional and personal betrayals, and more violent deaths than one might expect from a tale about a particularly persnickety critic.

What's most intriguing, perhaps, is how Marber and director Anand Tucker play with our sympathies and expectations in relation to these characters. First, there is Jimmy, who has been the newspaper's drama critic for decades and gained some fame or infamy for his harsh, sometimes cruel way with words. In theory, he has liked and maybe loved some productions in the past, but from what we see of his writing style, it's primarily in attack mode—warning potential audience members of a metaphorical reek of sewage coming from one theater on account of its newest staging of Jacobean drama.

A regular target of Jimmy is Nina Land (Gemma Arterton), an actress of some fame who, despite that, can't get past the vitriol of this critic's assessments of her acting. On the advice of her mother (played by Lesley Manville), Nina decides to confront Jimmy, waiting outside his home and following him down the street. Both of them seem equally surprised when the confrontation turns almost cordial, with Jimmy telling the actress that he's mostly disappointed she isn't reaching the potential he knows she possesses and Nina explaining to the critic that his writing is a major reason she wanted to become an actor in the first place.

There are other characters surrounding and serving as unknowing connections to the critic and the actress, too. The two major ones are David Brooke (Mark Strong), a nobleman and the new owner of the paper by way of an inheritance from his recently deceased father, and Stephen (Ben Barnes), a local artist. By coincidence, Stephen is painting a portrait of the newspaper's staff, including private sessions with Jimmy, while also pursuing Nina to rekindle an affair they previously had.

Meanwhile, David is ready to part ways with Jimmy, because of the critic's unforgiving writing and when the writer's private life almost becomes a matter of public record. Jimmy is desperate to keep his job, and when he notices the way his soon-to-be ex-boss looks at Nina on stage, the critic believes he has found something to exploit about the otherwise upstanding man, who all but officially rejects his aristocratic station and his father's politics.

In this mode, the movie is fascinating, because it's mostly about believable characters, living through a specific era and surprising us with the depths beneath their obvious surfaces. With this cast, that feeling is only heightened. McKellen brings a degree of vulnerability to his poison-penned critic, and Arterton is wholly genuine as the actress who senses her career slipping away before she could reach the heights she wanted to attain. Strong is especially good as the character who turns out to be the one truly decent person of the bunch.

Once the connection between David and Nina comes to light, though, the plotting may gain more focus, as Jimmy concocts a plan that quickly gets him what he wants and gradually gets out of hand, but it also takes over the narrative. The conspiracy and its unintended consequences are at the center. As a result, these characters become, well, less interesting, as their depth is reduced to a single plot-oriented trait—scheming or, for the most part, guilt—and they start to function, instead of simply being.

The turns here may be devious and wicked, while also being appropriately understated in terms of how they unfold. Until that point, The Critic creates rich, authentic characters with little concern about what they need to do for and in the middle of some plot. They deserve better than becoming the pawns of fate, contrivance, and the machinations of a cynical thriller.

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