Producers: Jolyon Symonds, Bill Kenwright and David Gilbury Director: Anand Tucker Screenplay: Patrick Marber Cast: Ian McKellen, Gemma Arterton, Mark Strong, Ben Barnes, Alfred Enoch, Romola Garai, Lesley Manville, Nikesh Patel, Jay Simpson and Claire Skinner Distributor: Greenwich Entertainment
Grade: B-
Anand Tucker’s comedy-drama, with a script by Patrick Marber adapted from Anthony Quinn’s 2015 novel “Curtain Call,” is hardly a great movie, or even an especially good one, but it’s worth watching if only for the oversized performance of Ian McKellen in the title role.
He plays Jimmy Erskine, the acerbic long-time drama critic of a London newspaper in the 1930s. He attends opening nights with his secretary and lover Tom Turner (Alfred Enoch). After the performance they return to the apartment they share, where Tom types up the review from Erskine’s longhand draft. But walking home they can be accosted in the street by a pack of Oswald Motley’s fascist blackshirts, whom a drunken Jimmy is inclined to infuriate with his effeminate ways and catty tongue. Nor are his lifestyle and brutal wordmanship to the liking of his new boss David Brooke (Mark Strong), a proudly upright man who’s just inherited the ownership, and editorial control, of the paper. And when Jimmy and Tom are hauled in by the police for a public display of affection, Brooke confronts Erskine with a termination notice, effective in a month’s time.
But the critic is not about to give up his position of eminence without a fight, and finds his instrument in Nina Land (Gemma Arterton), a young leading lady whose attempts at the classics he’s been excoriating in print so savagely that her doting mother (Lesley Manville) suggests she approach him and ask for advice. Nina finds him surprisingly sympathetic, but there’s a sinister motive to his apparent kindness: Erskine’s noticed that the usually impassive Brooke is a devoted fan, and schemes to induce her to seduce him so that he can then blackmail Brooke and retain his job. In return for her help he promises to shower her future career with extravagant praise in print.
There’s a further wrinkle in that Nina has been having an affair with Stephen Wyley (Ben Barnes), a painter who’s completing a group portrait of significant personages in the club where Brooke and Erskine are both long-time members; Wyley has been painting Erskine as part of that project. But he’s also Brooke’s brother-in-law, married to the Viscount’s sister Cora (Romola Garai), who would never tolerate his infidelity, just as Brooke’s wife Mary (Claire Skinner) would be devastated by news of her husband’s dalliance with Land.
In this complex of relationships Erskine’s plan works, but the ramifications are severe, with not one but two deaths resulting from it, as well as an apparent—or it is feigned?—crisis of conscience that upends his apparent success.
“The Critic” is marvelously evocative of the London of nearly a century ago, both in terms of its social, political and legal circumstances (the classism, the interwar flirting with fascism, the vicious anti-gay prejudice) and in terms of its look, which the production design (Lucienne Suren), art direction (Eléonore Cremonese and Mary Davis), set decoration (Amanda George) and costumes (Claire Finlay-Thompson) capture with loving detail, all reflected in sumptuous widescreen images by cinematographer David Higgs. Craig Armstrong’s score dovetails nicely with the lush visuals.
Marber’s script, it must be admitted, isn’t nearly as meticulous, often coming across, especially in the latter sections, as something tossed together without much care for the connections. (And the notion that a critic would sacrifice his integrity in a search for revenge is, of course, utterly ridiculous!) Nor does the rather dilatory approach of Tucker and editors Beverley Miles and John Gilbert camouflage the deficiencies.
But the cast treats even the second-rate material with practiced aplomb. Most of the performances are fairly one-note, with Strong, for example, the stiffly aristocratic prude and Manville the fluttery but insistent stage mother; others, like Barnes and Enoch, are merely stiff. But Arterton gets more opportunities for emotional variety, from desperate to pleading to seductive to drunk, and though she often seems to be trying too hard, one can appreciate the effort. (Her tinny onstage voice, moreover, makes Erskine’s dismissal of Nina in serious period plays seem quite reasonable. Shades of Dorothy Comingore!)
But towering over it all is McKellen, who sweeps through the proceedings in deliciously hammy mode, savoring every insult Erskine barks, each wink and sneer he delivers, and all his profuse exhibitions of insincerity. Befitting the setting, it’s an outrageously theatrical performance that can’t elevate the movie beyond the trifle it is, but makes it enjoyable on its own modest terms.
And there’s a genuine hint of poignancy, in terms of both character and actor, when octogenarian McKellen delivers Jimmy’s final line: “I won’t be here forever.”