Film Pick of the Week: The Critic - review by Yvette Huddleston
The Critic Prime Video, review by Yvette Huddleston
The magnificent Ian McKellen enjoys himself enormously as the critic of the title – malicious, pompous and self-aggrandising Jimmy Erskine, theatre correspondent for The Daily Chronicle, who delights in striking fear in the hearts of the West End theatre community in 1930s London.
Erskine has been working for the newspaper for forty years and was a good friend of the aristocratic late proprietor but times are changing now that his son Viscount Brooke (Mark Strong) has taken over. He wants to change the tone of the publication and restore it to its status of Britain’s “foremost family newspaper.” He makes it clear to Erskine that he needs to reign in the elaborate nastiness and to avoid causing any scandal with his “proclivities”. Erskine is gay and at a time when his sexuality is considered deviant and is illegal, he seems unafraid to take risks.
The actor who is currently on the receiving end of Erskine’s bile is leading lady Nina Land (Gemma Arterton), who is popular with audiences but not with him. His reviews of her performances are cruel and uncompromising – and, it turns out, very much at odds with Viscount Brooke’s view of Land. He has been secretly in love with her for years, neglecting his depressed wife (Claire Skinner) while musing on the object of his desire.
As Erskine says “every man has a secret”. He has plenty of his own and when he is arrested for gross indecency, it seems that his career is over. Brooke bails him out but is not prepared to keep him on at the paper – he offers him a generous pay-off and suggests that he retires. But Erskine has other ideas and starts to hatch a Machiavellian plan in which he ruthlessly exploits Nina Land. She is having an affair with Brooke’s bohemian artist son-in-law Stephen Wyley (Ben Barnes), who is stuck in a loveless marriage to icy Cora (Romola Garai). Erskine also embroils his long-suffering live-in ‘secretary’ Tom (Alfred Enoch) in his unpleasant scheme whose pleas for restraint and decency he ignores.
Adapted by screenwriter and playwright Patrick Marber from Anthony Quinn’s bestselling novel Curtain Call, it is an enjoyable but uneven caper. At times the tone is uncertain and the swing from black comedy to crime drama feels jarring but the performances from a very strong cast (which also includes Lesley Manville as Land’s mother) are all excellent. And McKellen is on top, scenery-chewing form.