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The Critic (2023 movie)

I missed out on this film on general release and watched it yesterday on Amazon Prime.

It’s based upon the Anthony Quinn novel Curtain Call but fell short of the book.

It featured Ian McKellen as the acerbic Daily Chronicle theatre critic Jimmy Erskine modelled on James Agate.

Set in the 1930s, the new proprietor of the newspaper – Viscount Brooke – requests that Erskine tones down his vitriolic reviews, particularly those directed at the aspiring actress Nina Land (Gemma Arterton).

It transpires that Brooke is obsessed by her.

Erskine, who leads a life of open gay promiscuity, is eventually sacked and devises a ruse whereby Nina Land seduces Brooke and thereby Erskine can blackmail Brooke to get his job back.

We now live in an age of some great actors – Mark Gatiss, Rage Fiennes, Liam Neeson and and Tim Spall spring to mind – but I cannot include Ian McKellen among them.

I think he has made too much of being gay and as he morphed from the theatre to making films his talent was diminished.

Here his portrayal of Erskine as waspish is convincing but without any appeal and lives up to Erskine’s criticism of Nina Land that she fails to maximise her talent.

Gemma Arterton does better as the vulnerable actress but she is a torch bearer for me too, which inhibits her acting.

Mark Strong is excellent as Viscount Brooke and Lesley Manville too as Nina Land’s smothering mother. Particularly in the last hour, when Erskine and Land work out their wily ruse, the film drags its weight.

The novel also contained a murder mystery which does not feature in the film and the society painter Stephen plays a bigger rõle.

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About Neil Rosen

Neil went to the City of London School and Manchester University graduating with a 1st in economics. After a brief stint in accountancy, Neil emigrated to a kibbutz In Israel. His articles on the burgeoning Israeli film industry earned comparisons to Truffaut and Godard in Cahiers du Cinema. Now one of the world's leading film critics and moderators at film Festivals Neil has written definitively in his book Kosher Nostra on Jewish post war actors. Neil lives with his family in North London. More Posts