Film Review – The Critic

Oh aren’t we meta! A wannabe film critic reviewing a film about a theatre critic! All that aside, I had a very pleasant daytime visit to the cinema with my good lady wife. We went along to see The Critic starring Ian McKellen and Gemma Arterton. It was a spur of the moment thing which is one of the big delights of being retired. I had seen a review in The Guardian and my attention was caught by “no one keeps an unfiltered cigarette in the corner of his mouth with more style than McKellen.” Silly I know, but it made me smile and want to watch the trailer. And the trailer did exactly what a trailer is supposed to do…it made me want to go and see the film! 

It was delightfully atmospheric capturing the spirit and feel of London in the mid thirties, 1934 to be precise. Television was just starting to be broadcast but it was a long way off the ubiquity of the present day. So what did people do for entertainment? They went to the theatre. Back then there were a lot more theatres thanks to a theatre building boom in the 19^th Century. Not only were there a lot more theatres back then but there was also a fashion for putting on two shows a night. And how did people choose which play to go and see? They read the reviews in the newspapers. This meant that the critics held a fair bit of power over the success or otherwise of the productions being staged.

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I Wish You’d Stop Meddling

Which brings us to Jimmy Erskine (Ian McKellen). He is the chief drama critic of the Daily Chronicle which is one of the most widely read newspapers in the country. For reasons best known unto himself he does not like Nina Land (Gemma Arterton). With the help of his live in friend, lover, and amanuensis Tom Turner (Alfred Enoch) he gives her a written kicking every time he can. They meet in a park and Nina says “Over the last ten years you have compared me to livestock, creatures of the sea, and an extinct bird. It’s going to stop.” Jimmy replies “Oooh are you retiring?”

Another lines is “Hold your breath because here is theatrical sewage”; he really doesn’t like her and she knows it. Her mother, Annabel Land (Lesley Manville) says that Nina needs to speak to him. As mentioned before, they do meet and talk but it doesn’t go well for her. However things are happening at the Chronicle. The previous owner has just died and the running of the newspaper has passed to his son Viscount Brooke (Mark Strong). Unbeknownst to Jimmy, Viscount Brooke has a soft spot for Nina Land. Brooke calls Jimmy into his office and tells him to tone down his reviews as it can be off-putting to the readers. “More beauty, less beast” he says. But Jimmy thinks that he and his fellow Old Guards are untouchable and assume that they ARE the Chronicle and will be there forever.

I’m Not Meddling, I’m Mothering

However, Jimmy and Tom are arrested on a charge of homosexuality and Viscount Brooke has to pull strings to get them released. This gives him the excuse he needs to give Jimmy and the other Old Guard a month’s notice. So Jimmy decides that the way out of his predicament is to find something that he can blackmail the Viscount with. This turns out to be his crush on Nina. There then follows an abrupt volte-face where Jimmy promises Nina that he can make her a star by praising every one of her future performances and all she has to do is be nice to the Viscount. I’ll stop there in case I give away more than the trailer!

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You only need to look at the cast to know that you will be getting first rate performances. The script was written by Patrick Marber after the novel Curtain Call by Anthony Quinn. The director was Anand Tucker. What intrigues me is what it was like originally. The official release date was 7^th September 2023 at the Toronto International Film Festival. However it garnered very mixed reviews and an unhappy audience due to it having a dark ending. The distribution company got involved and requested re-shoots and a new cut of the film with a new ending. This version is what was released on 13^th September 2024. I would really like to see the original version!

Grade: A