Patrick Marber’s screenplay gives him the kind of withering retorts that a man possessing his kind of Gielgudian timber (which he learned from, you guessed it, John Gielgud himself) can use to vaporize the souls of both the well-meaning and the ignorant. One can practically hear the ring walk-out music just from reading the synopsis: Heel McKellen has returned after a four-year absence from the screen (his last film, Bill Condon’s The Good Liar, was actually pretty solid) and he’s given a particularly good role here, with Jimmy’s particulars allowing him to express his charisma and intimidating presence in equal measure. An idea forms in his head: what if he were to put Ben and Nina together? Could he corrupt a seemingly incorruptible man? And, if so, could he use it as blackmail, perhaps, to get his job back? Before Jimmy’s firing, she and he began to strike up a small friendship: she wanted to know why he hated her, and he responded with candor and comfort in equal measure. She’s spent her life struggling on the stage, dealing with the bullshit reviews, with only her mother (Lesley Manville) and her paramour – a married painter named Stephen (Ben Barnes) – to support her. Ben is infatuated with Nina Land (Gemma Arterton), an actress who Jimmy seems to have a special hatred for. This is the stated cause of his dismissal from the paper – anything but a scandal within the ranks, given that Ben pulled strings to get Jimmy and Tom released - but a second, more subtle thread emerges. Jimmy and Ben’s conflict comes to a head over two things: First, there’s Jimmy’s flaunting of English sodomy laws, which were, at that time, years away from being repealed, and, one night, he and Tom are arrested by park-wandering bobbies, who, based on the BUF pins on their lapels, might point towards a darkened future for men like him. The paper has provided Jimmy with a lot in his long life – he has a large home, ample time to write, and enough money to cover the fact that his “secretary,” Tom (Alfred Enoch), is actually his live-in partner. Ben has decided to cut costs and purge some of the more disagreeable elements of the paper, and it doesn’t help Jimmy’s case that Ben attends the theater regularly and often flagrantly disagrees with his takes on things – not his opinions, per say, but rather the fact that he is a fucking asshole when writing a pan. At the film’s start in 1936, the longtime owner and publisher (who also happened to be Jimmy’s personal patron) has passed away, and his son Ben (Mark Strong) has taken power, and he has decidedly fewer sympathies for Jimmy and the old guard of the Chronicle, as well as few for Oswald Mosley, who the old man privately supported. BritBox subscribers will go apeshit for this, but it’s a solid little thriller with impressive performances that I believe most will enjoy, even if their Anglophilic aunt makes them watch it a few Thanksgivings from now in lieu of watching the Dallas Cowboys.īased on Anthony Quinn’s novel Curtain Call, The Critic focuses on Jimmy Erskine (McKellen) and his last days of employment at the Daily Chronicle, a paper whose pages he’s graced with his purple prosed praises and poison-penned pans for the better part of four decades as its theater critic.
I have a major soft spot for these kinds of scandal-sheet period dramas, which counteract their inherent stuffiness with some measure of intrigue – I think of something like Mothering Sunday from TIFF 2021, which was a very silly attempt at merging sex and high art in the ‘70s fashion that I was positively endeared by – and The Critic is of a similarly tawdry strain, though it’s far less explicit in what it shows us. Rather, it’s a prestige period drama, though it definitely has its tie loosened and a fair amount of Beefeater already in its gut, which is to say that it is as positively pulpy as a Florida orange. We wish we were up there with him! Check out our continuing coverage of TIFF 2023, read our official preview, and revisit our complete archives of prior editions.įor those hoping that someone at the former Fox managed to con Sir Ian McKellen into starring in a live-action adaptation of Jay Sherman’s life and times, I’m sorry to disappoint you with the news that Anand Tucker’s The Critic is not an adaptation of the Jon Lovitz cartoon (although that might be a plus, given that it’ll never cross over with The Simpsons).
Editor’s Note: Vanyaland film editor Nick Johnston is back in Canada all week covering the 2023 Toronto International Film Festival.
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