Sure, there’s a sense of irony that a film reviewer is critiquing a movie that is centred around the story of a theatre critic who is renowned for scathing, biting, and downright mean reviews. And personal opinions aside regarding how many critics, whether film, theatre or otherwise, are far too high on the idea that their opinions are the be all and end all of media literacy, there is something scandalously entertaining about the melodrama of Ian McKellen’s performance in The Critic, poking fun at the exact people who will be writing about this film!
In the 1930s London, Jimmy Erskine (Ian McKellen) is the drama critic for a paper recently taken over by Viscount David Brooke (Mark Strong), after it was left to him following the passing of his father, who was quite fond of Erskine’s work, which often negatively criticised anything that didn’t reach his incredibly high and pretentious standards.
As Brooke attempts to widen the audience of his paper, he requests Erskine to tone down the vitriol of his reviews, believing his harsh criticism pushes readers away. Believing this to be a ploy from Brooke to push him out of the paper, and after Brooke turns away from Erskine’s request for help when he and his lover are arrested on the grounds of homosexuality, Erskine hatches a plan to utilise the help of Nina Land (Gemma Arterton), an actress who has been on the receiving end of Erskine’s berating reviews, to seduce and blackmail Brooke into keeping Erskine at the paper, in return for Nina to receive positive reviews from Erskine for the rest of her career.
Attempting to balance a melodramatic period piece, with a splash of comedic sensibility, and the minor thrills of a more downplayed blackmailing thriller, The Critic is tonally spinning far too many plates, never once feeling like it can dedicate to a singular, overall genre to play in. This results in a muddled story that goes back and forth on telling the audience to either take this film seriously or have a bit of fun with it.
The melodrama of the performances and plot would suggest that The Critic would lean into the latter, especially with Ian McKellen’s dastardly camp portrayal of Jimmy Erskine, who feels very purposefully constructed to be an archetype of every narcissistic, pretentious critic known to man. Something that McKellen seems to relish in the teasing nature of the role. However, at times, that can take away from the fact that Jimmy Erskine is a real, human being, who goes through quite serious ordeals throughout the story.
A tense and frightening encounter with a group of toxically masculine men who berate Jimmy for his sexuality, and the disregard shown by Brooke when Erskine is arrested for just being a gay man, comes and goes far too quickly within the plot, even though it seems to feel significant when introduced into the story. It’s around this point of the film where the tonal shifts become more frequent and apparent, as the film becomes about the scheming plot of Erskine to blackmail Brooke and retain his (self) respected status as a critic.
Outside of McKellan, the rest of the performances also suffer from the tonal confusion, with Mark Strong acting in a far more serious film than say Gemma Arterton. Both are good, but both feel like they’re partaking in different films altogether.
Where a strength of The Critic lies is in director Anand Tuckers direction. Crisp cinematography capturing a quite authentic reconstruction of an early 1930s London. The set designs and costuming are very immersive, often giving something visually pleasing to watch while the messy plot plays out, almost in the background.
The Critic funnily enough seems like a film that would be revered by the titular character. The tonal inconsistencies of the plot are far too obvious to ignore, often leading to a feeling where you’re not sure if the movie is having fun with its ridiculous plot, or not. While McKellan stands out with a melodramatic turn that makes fun of the occupation his character holds, it’s not enough to save The Critic from its own script.
The Critic is in Australian cinemas on October 3.
