The Green Knight (2021) A24/Fantasy-Adventure RT: 130 minutes Rated R (violence, some sexuality, graphic nudity) Director: David Lowery Screenplay: David Lowery Music: Daniel Hart Cinematography: Andrew Droz Palermo Release date: July 30, 2021 (US) Cast: Dev Patel, Alicia Vikander, Joel Edgerton, Sarita Choudhury, Sean Harris, Kate Dickie, Barry Keoghan, Emilie Hetland, Anthony Morris, Erin Kellyman, Helena Browne, Ralph Ineson. Box Office: $17.1M (US)/$18.8M (World)
Rating: **
How shall I put this? It takes over 11 hours to watch all three extended versions of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The Green Knight runs only two hours and ten minutes, yet still feels longer than the LOTR trilogy. Written and directed by David Lowery (A Ghost Story), it’s a dull slog of a medieval adventure that’s never as compelling as it should be. My own struggle to stay awake felt more urgent than any challenge faced by the hero on his journey towards fate.
Based on the 14th century poem “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”, it’s fourth time a film adaptation has been attempted. One of them, the 1984 Golan-Globus production Sword of the Valiant, I watched the day before I saw The Green Knight. Bad as it is, I like it better than the latest version. At least it’s entertainingly bad. It has to be with Miles O’Keefe in the lead. I could say The Green Knight is just plain bad, but it wouldn’t be fair or accurate. It’s not all bad. At times, one can see traces of the fascinating film it could have been. Lowery’s visual sense, especially his use of nature and natural surroundings, is tremendous. The rest is a bore.
Dev Patel (Slumdog Millionaire) stars as Gawain, an irresponsible youth about to face the greatest challenge of his life. It’s Christmas and he’s been invited to sit next to his uncle, King Arthur (Harris, Mission: Impossible- Rogue Nation), at the holiday feast. Suddenly, an imposing figure on horseback bursts through the doors. It’s the Green Knight (Ineson, The Witch) and he wants to play a “game”. He invites any one of the king’s knights to come forward and try to land a blow with his own axe. There’s a catch. The knight will have to travel to the Green Chapel in a year’s time so the Green Knight can deliver an identical blow with the axe.
Gawain, in an attempt to prove his mettle to his uncle, accepts the challenge and lops off The Green Knight’s head. The headless figure grabs his head and rides off laughing. A year later, a still immature Gawain rides out of Camelot to uphold his end of the deal after some urging from his uncle. He has encounters with thieves, giants and a ghostly woman before arriving at the castle of a lord (Edgerton, Midnight Special) and lady (Vikander, The Danish Girl) who give him a place to rest before his date with the Green Knight.
I don’t consider myself a shallow person. I pride myself in (usually) understanding the intentions of filmmakers. I love it when they go deep and play with viewers’ perceptions. I enjoy weird movies as evidenced by my appreciation of David Lynch (Eraserhead) and Alejandro Jodorowsky (El Topo). I hate to say it, but The Green Knight is too weird for even me. It has this hallucinogenic quality that gradually feels more like a drug-induced stupor. I sat there thinking I was missing something. It finally dawned on me that Lowery is the one that missed. He seems to know what he wants to do with his interpretation of the poem, but fails to connect with the audience. It’s so boring that it just feels pointless after a while. I let my mind wander a few times and never felt like I missed anything important.
It’s too bad The Green Knight is such a crushing disappointment; it has a few good points that only end up serving as a reminder of the film’s wasted potential. The visuals, brought to brilliant life by Andrew Droz Palermo (A Ghost Story), are stunning. The woods never looked so beautiful and threatening at the same time. Patel does a fine job as Gawain who can’t really be described as heroic. He’s one of those young, entitled sorts ill-prepared for the real world. Not only that, it’s suggested at the end his future self is no prize either. Sarita Choudhury (Mississippi Masala) is also good as Gawain’s mother, Arthur’s half-sister Morgan Le Fay, a witch who summons the Green Knight in order to force her son finally grow up. The rest of the acting is fine albeit unremarkable.
It isn’t just the pacing that kills The Green Knight, it’s also all the talking. When the characters stop to talk to each other, it stops the film dead. Not only that, it’s hard to understand what they’re saying. I don’t know if it was filmed this way or it’s the theater’s sound system, but it was muffled. What I did hear didn’t make a lot of sense either.
In the end, I just didn’t like The Green Knight. I did admire it though. It’s more unusual than it is interesting. I also respect Lowery for consciously not making a mainstream Hollywood movie. It just didn’t connect with me. I’m willing to give it another chance at some point.
