I watched this on MUBI last year, but it inevitably got cycled off that service. Last week it showed up for a fiver on Amazon UK (ten bucks on Amazon US), so I decided to get a copy to keep. The writer, John Logan, does an intelligent job of cutting and combining characters and dialogue, which has the effect of adding pace and clarity and gives Brian Cox a lot more to do. He’s in full twinkly charm mode as a Roman politician, and has one of my favourite lines of Shakespeare, which he delivers with a perfect dose of weary acid: “More of your conversation would infect my brain.”
Gerard Butler was the big surprise for me here: doing some research afterwards, it turns out he started as a well-regarded Shakespearian actor.
There’s a superb choice here: exposition and reports are taken from actors in the text and given to the British newsreader and journalist Jon Snow, in the context of television news programming. It works perfectly.
If there’s a loss here, it’s that Jessica Chastain isn’t given enough: it may work for the story that she’s dominated by all the giants looming about her, not least the formidable Vanessa Redgrave, but, since we know Chastain isn’t without talent, she seems somewhat wasted.
It’s a very well made film, and it makes me wonder why Fiennes hasn’t directed more: it’s cleverly made, and stands up strongly beside McKellen’s RICHARD III and Stewart’s MACBETH.
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