Review: Dev Patel captivates in the legend of "The Green Knight"
Monday, August 2, 2021 at 3:09PM
by Matt St Clair
the severed head of "The Green Knight"
Normally, Arthurian legends are sword-and-sorcery fables. The latest Arthurian tale The Green Knight, which is primarily about Arthur’s nephew Gawain (Dev Patel) keeps the sorcery, yet there’s little swordplay. Unless you count a terrifying axe that keeps waiting to be swung. The Green Knight may be less action-oriented than other such tales but it's a visually stunning, cerebral dissection of the Messiah complex and its ties to monarchy.
Despite Gawain not being religiously devout, he’s still eager to become a knight at his uncle’s Round Table...
He's someone who believes that, because he’s putting his life on the line for his kingdom, he’s an almighty figure. His worthiness as a knight, tasked with warfare as well as maintaining order within the kingdom becomes put to the test once the mysterious Green Knight (Ralph Ineson) arrives. In the first act, which is more of a prologue, Gawain takes part in the Knight’s strange dual challenge and severs his head. The knight, who rides off laughing with this head tucked under his arm, tasks Gaiwan with a quest in one year's time. He must ride to the Green Chapel so that the headless knight can return the blow.
When we first meet Gawain, he’s awoken by a splash of water from his lover Essel (Alicia Vikander) who says, “Christ is born.” It's a playful acknowledgment of the holiday (the movie begins at Christmas) and a teasing of Gawain’s ego. “Christ is born, indeed!” he lustily replies, embracing her. As he clumsily makes his way to the Round Table, guzzling booze, it’s clear he must shed his hedonistic ways to be worthy of the chivalric position he hopes to claim. Patel expertly portrays both Gawain’s ego and hedonism and his more thoughtful nature and skepticism of his own nobility.
Patel anchors the surreal fantasy, surrounded by a capable supporting cast. With a dual role as Gaiwan's peasant lover and a mysterious high-born Lady Gaiwan meets near the end of his quest, Vikander fares best. Meanwhile, Barry Keoghan makes the most of his miniscule role as the dastardly Scavenger while Sean Harris, Kate Dickie, Sarita Choudhury, Joel Edgerton, and Erin Kellyman work similar wonders with small parts.
The hazy cinematography by Andrew Droz Palmero paints subsequent Gawain’s journey to the Green Chapel like a fever dream. Daniel's Hart's horror-like musical score is searing and effective. The editing by editor/writer/director David Lowery helps this two-hour film run along smoothly.
Neverthless, The Green Knight is all about Dev Patel. All about his magnetic performance and of course, his physical beauty in this meditation on honor done with psychotropic, and somewhat erotic, flair by David Lowery (Seriously, there’s one horny scene that makes one wonder how it managed to successfully earned only an R-rating). Rather than go any deeper into the film's achievement, it’s best to simply let you take in this trippy masterpiece for yourself. A
The Green Knight is now playing in theaters.
Reader Comments (18)
What a horrible looking head.
So...definitely too weird for Best Picture, but Director and Actor are at least possible?
This was a great film and Dev Patel is now a made man.
LOVED this film and saw it twice this weekend - so strange and haunting. The final half hour is particularly stunning aided by a gorgeous score I've had on repeat the last couple days. I loved the poem in high school and was impressed with the ways this reshapes it.
I Lost My Body, The Personal History of David Copperfield, Modern Love and now The Green Knight. Dev Pastel is having a wonderful career. 💗
Chasm -- I cant picture seeing it twice in quick succession. It was A LOT as they say. But it definitely made for great conversation afterwards.
Gwen -- agreed. He's really choosing projects well
@Volvagia - it's your standard A24 picture (Midsommar, Hereditary, The Lighthouse, The VVitch, etc) - it's going to have it's passionate admirers, but will be lucky even to get any down-ballot nominations.
Count me as a passionate admirer, of course. Just loved it, but definitely not the Academy's cup of tea.
Mesmerizing and quite powerful. As another person who loves the original poem, I found the changes to the first half intriguing, but unlike chasm301, I got pretty irritated at what it does in the last half hour. Also ambivalent about the fact that Lowery makes Gawain such a flawed character. (I know, I know - the modern mind prefers characters that sin and grow, not almost-perfect knights who are chastened by not being completely perfect. But...)
However, on reflection, the ending is growing on me. It's definitely a bold reinterpretation. And it's beautifully spooky.
Still don't love the CGI fox, though.
Sarita Choudhury, who plays Mother, has a resemblance (from pictures I have seen) to Ava Gardner, especially around the eyes, with lengthy credits since 1991. She is half British and half Indian, just like Ava's character in Bhowani Junction. Fine writeup, like Dev Patel and will see the picture.
Is this the one with frontal nudity?
Going this week since I was out of town over the weekend. It's clearly one of those films where you say, "if you're mad about all the reboots, sequels, and remakes, you'd better go to this or keep your mouth shut forever."
If I get any nekkid Dev Patel, I'll be screaming out "hallelujah!" at the top of my lungs in my multiplex in south central Texas.
Dan -- thank you for saying that. People are always saying this and then they dont go support original works.
@Nathaniel. It reminds me of a conversation I had once with feminist I know (and I love feminism, but she isn't exactly one of the great feminist scholars of our time. Her idea of feminist film theory is to apply the Bechtel test to everything and criticize any movie that doesn't pass it.). Anyway, she said Martin Scorsese couldn't be considered a great artist because all he focused on were men and men's issues. I asked her about ALICE DOESN'T LIVE HERE ANYMORE and THE AGE OF INNOCENCE. "Well, I haven't seen those. But that's just two films." Leaving aside the fact that Scorsese's films about toxic masculinity could very much be considered feminist films, I thought: "gosh, maybe if ALICE and AGE would have made as much money as GOODFELLAS and THE DEPARTED, Scorsese would have made more films like that."
@Dan A good way to shut people up who whine about Disney remakes and sequels is to ask them: Did you go see QUEEN OF KATWE when it came out?
People are not watching what I want them to watch. Fascists!
@Tyne Daily People can watch whatever they want. But if they're not going to support original work, they shouldn't be bothering everyone by complaining that Hollywood doesn't support individual work. Hollywood gives people pretty much exactly what they want, or, rather exactly what they pay to see.
@Dan & Nathaniel Go guck yourselves!
This film is a mixed bag for me, but it's definitely a compliment that *this* talking fox works much better for me than the one in "Antichrist."