MOVIE REVIEW: Macbeth

MACBETH
DIRECTOR: Justin Kurzel
CAST: Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, Paddy Consadine, David Thewlis, Jack Reynor, Elizabeth Debicki
CLASSIFICATION: 13 V
RUNNING TIME: 113 minutes
RATING: 3 stars (out of 5)
Theresa Smith
Beautifully filmed, this is the shortest version of Macbeth I have ever seen.

Credit: jonathanolley.co.uk

Marion Cotillard and Michael Fassbender in Macbeth. Photography by Jonathan Olley

Beautifully filmed, this is the shortest version of Macbeth I have ever seen. The Bard’s Scottish play has been truncated for Justin Kurzel’s film version, ditching several key lines and changing some of the original plot.

The three witches still preside over the tragedy, but now they are joined by a fourth little one, who references a child we see Macbeth (Fassbender) and his wife (Cotillard) bury right at the beginning of the film. This particular reference to their childless state is an important theme that remains from the original source material, and is heavily emphasised.

Adam Arkapaw’s cinematography greatly adds to a very ominous atmosphere and the film starts in uncanny mist and ends in eerie smoke, putting you in the middle of a filthy, rain-soaked, Scotland where clearly bad things are about to happen. The battles are nasty and bloody with lots of slow-motion shots and the music is foreboding.

Macbeth fulfils his duty as the Thane of Glamis to fight on behalf of King Duncan and wins an important battle, setting off a chain of events which ends in tragedy. He takes heed of a trio of witches’ prophecy he will one day be king and tries to hurry the happy event along.

Thankfully, all of this is apparent in the imagery of the scenes, because if you just listened to this film without the visuals, you would be lost very quickly.

We see Macbeth the fearless warrior, but don’t quite get that he is ambitious, just that he is really fierce and spends most of his time on the battlefield. Lady Macbeth speaking in a French accent actually makes sense – it would have been a possiblity at the time – and Cotillard comes across as dutiful wife, but her whole going mad and then killing herself bit is lacking.

The language remains the old English we know from our books and some of the actors come off better than others. If you are familiar with the tale it makes sense, but anyone unfamiliar with the plot and dialogue is going to struggle to make sense of the convoluted lines.

Fassbender slips between a few poetic lines which make sense and lots of lines that just don’t scan at all. He and Cotillard are both so careful about what they are saying that the story feels staged rather than lived in, because they come across as saying lines, not feeling all ambitious and cunning and guilty about their actions.

While the look of the film brilliantly sets the scene – it is the Scottish moors of old and life is vicious so you have to grab it by the horns and make of it what you will – the actual storyline never makes you feel anything other than awe for the gorgeous visual background.

If you liked, Ralph Fiennes’ Coriolanus, you will like this.

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