Mark Reviews Movies: THE SEAGULL

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Review by Mark Dujsik | May 17, 2018

There's the obvious approach to material, and then there's the approach that subverts the material to some degree. The obvious approach to Anton Chekhov's The Seagull is, essentially, to work backwards from its tragic ending. The thinking is that, if a story ends tragically, everything before the finale must serve to define it.

One easily could sense how such an approach could be put to Chekhov's play. Indeed, people likely have seen that approach to the play in action. It's a matter of tone in the direction and the performances. If a production wants the audience to anticipate what will happen, it's probably a good idea to have the central character of the actress portrayed as a domineering, uncaring woman and mother. The text surely supports that interpretation.

The text of Chekhov's play could be taken in a different direction, though—one that doesn't assume tragedy or see it as an inevitability. That's the approach of director Michael Mayer's film adaptation of the play. One could be forgiven for finding The Seagull a bit confusing at first. Here is one of the great dramas of modern theater, and for some reason, we find ourselves laughing.

The comedy is intentional. Mayer and screenwriter Stephen Karam have looked just a little bit deeper into Chekhov's text. There, they've found what's essentially a comedy about a group of family members, friends, and employees who are so caught up in their individual neuroses, pains, and heartaches that they can neither see nor feel anything else. Here, Chekhov's drama is played as a comedy of selfishness, vanity, and egocentrism. The tragedy of this adaptation is not that the tragedy is inevitable. It's that the characters are incapable of comprehending how it got to that point.

The story is set in Russia during the first decade of the 20th century. It primarily revolves around the relationship between an actress named Irina (Annette Bening) and her son Konstantin (Billy Howle), an aspiring writer whose work seems destined to be overlooked. There are plenty of other characters here, of course, whose lives and dreams and frustrations are as important as the mother and son, but ultimately, the story is about Irina, who is jealous and petty, and Konstantin, who is romantic and impatient.

After a short flash-forward to events three years later (which occupy the entirety of the story's final act), the film opens with Konstantin preparing to put on a production of his latest play in the woods outside of the family's country estate. His writing has little to do with realism, and his play is a shadow puppet show of life on Earth after the fall of man. It's narrated by Nina (Saoirse Ronan), a sort-of aspiring actress who loves Konstantin and whom the playwright loves.

Irina, out of frustration or jealousy about being excluded from the production or both, spends the entirety of the performance making audible, dismissive critiques. Konstantin stops the show before it's finished and spends the rest of the story in an existential funk.

Other downtrodden characters include Masha (Elisabeth Moss), the daughter of the manager of the estate Ilya (Glenn Fleshler), and her mother Polina (Mare Winningham). Masha is in love with Konstantin and wears black to mourn her life, which comes as a disappointment to a local schoolteacher named Mikhail (Michael Zegen), who loves her. Polina is in love with the local doctor Yevgeny (Jon Tenney), who loves Irina. Irina is in love with the famous writer Boris Trigorin (Corey Stoll), who quickly grows to fancy the innocent and naïve Nina. Nina's admiration for the successful writer makes Konstantin even more depressed, and Boris' obvious attention toward and affection for Nina makes Irina even more jealous. Pjotr (Brian Dennehy), Irina's brother, has his own unrequited love: all of the things in life that he wanted to do but never did.

Just from a basic outline of the various affairs and breakings of the heart that are on display here, it should be easy enough to understand how this material could become comic. This may be the story of miserable, lovelorn people, but the film focuses on the characters' self-involvement to such an extent that it becomes almost absurd.

Everyone here tries to upstage his or her rival for affection. There are deceptions, such as when Boris plays submissive to Irina while planning a way to leave her for Nina, and grand gestures of despondency, such as how Konstantin presents a dead seagull that he shot at Nina's feet, as a metaphor for his feelings, and later turns the rifle on himself—either in a failed suicide attempt or as a way to violently get everyone's attention.

The characters may be reduced to types and pawns in this adaptation, but the performances are keenly aware of Mayer's different take on the material. There are amusing turns, especially from Bening and Moss. Stoll plays the slowly revealed cad of a writer with aplomb, and Howle and Ronan serve as a sincere, straight-faced juxtaposition to the more comically minded elements.

Is this approach in line with Chekhov's play? That's a question for scholars, who might be horrified at the way that Karam's screenplay greatly reduces the assorted characters' lengthy speeches about various cultural and philosophical matters. It's the story of the play seen through a different, almost critical lens. The Seagull isn't a totally experimental take on the source, but it is an experiment in tone that makes its source material a bit more digestible, a lot funnier, and, still, just as tragic.

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