THE GREEN KNIGHT

Directing: B
Acting: B
Writing: B
Cinematography: A-
Editing: B-
Special Effects: A-

Where to start with The Green Knight? Judging by the film’s trailer, you might reasonably expect yet another overdone, Arthurian legend fantasy blockbuster, which was why I dismissed it out of hand when I first saw it. But then, I was swayed by the shockingly positive reviews, and decided it was apparently a must-see. In the end, I find it to be somewhere in between deserving of dismissal and “must-see.”

Ironically, I suspect I would like the movie a lot more were I to watch it one or two more times. I’m just not sure I want to do that. Also, one could reasonably ask: why should I have to see a movie multiple times in order to fully appreciate it? Whatever the case, I spent a majority of my time watching The Green Knight not having any idea what the fuck was going on.

I guess I could have read the source material, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, except that I missed that when it got passed around in the 14th century. Also, full disclosure, I’d had too much chai at an Indian restaurant last night, which kept me awake most of the night, and then I dosed off several times during this movie. In my defense, after I was afraid I was confused because I snoozed through something critical about the plot, the person I saw the movie with confessed he was confused by a fair amount of it as well. So it isn’t just me!

Also, if you go into this movie expecting action set pieces, or even the kind of spectacle typical of summer movies, you will be sorely disappointed. The Green Knight has a pace so measured, it takes probably half an hour before anything happens that truly snaps you to attention. It’s also very artful, packed with layered meaning and allegory that, let’s face it, mostly just flew right over my head. I have to give it credit for being pretty fantastically shot, though. This movie has a lot of unforgettable imagery in it. You just might find a beautiful image cutting through one of your yawns. I often felt like this might be the kind of movie Stanley Kubric would have made had he done a fantasy genre film.

There’s also the fact that the writer and director, David Lowery, was the same guy who did A Ghost Story in 2017—another movie that takes its sweet time in getting to a point where it wins you over. The Green Knight is more exciting than that one . . . marginally. They clearly share a lot of visual and tonal DNA, though, and if you had seen A Ghost Story before and know The Green Knight was by the same guy, you might think, Oh, I get it. Sort of. Maybe.

Let’s see if I can get the basic gist of the story. Sir Gawain (Dev Patel) steps up to the challenge of The Green Knight (Ralph Ineson) to “strike a blow” against him and take his axe, the deal being that exactly one year later, he will return to The Green Knight to receive the exact same blow in return. Gawain chops off the Green Knight’s head, then most of the movie chronicles his quest over the following year to the “Green Chapel” where this reciprocating blow is to take place.

Does Gawain think he’s outsmarted The Green Knight by chopping of his head? Fuck if I know. All I know is that what follows is Gawain in a successive series of vignettes as he encounters people, ghosts and creatures, including women giants and a fox you only learn can talk after a lot of otherwise silent screen time, in one brief verbal exchange. The Green Knight is apparently a human-tree hybrid, by the way. Instead of looking like the Ents from Lord of the Rings, he looks more like Guardians of the Galaxy’s Groot in his retirement years.

He’s a very big guy, by the way. Which means his axe is huge. Gawain is carrying that thing all over the place. I found it kind of distracting that the comparatively scrawny Dev Patel never once struggled to pick the thing up, often with one hand! Also I’m pretty sure there’s a scene in which Joel Edgerton makes a pass at him. This is after a scene in which Edgerton’s character basically offers a woman of his house to Gawain, and we are treated to a quick shot of a hand smeared with semen. That was different. I told you this was not your typical fantasy film, didn’t I? I’m convinced this is all about that director, David Lowery, honestly. He’s jerking his own sensibilities all over this movie.

None of this makes the movie bad, mind you. It does make it far less accessible to mainstream audiences than it might have been otherwise. Only a few people I know would be into this, and if your greatest passion is for CGI set pieces in Avengers movies, this one’s going to bore you to tears. The Green Knight didn’t bore me, it just . . . couldn’t quite reach me. I really wanted it to, however, and that’s something. It has a lot of darkly beautiful imagery to look at, a superficial level to its many layers I could not penetrate. Upon further reflection, once this is available streaming, I may indeed watch it again. At least then I’ll have a far better sense of what to expect, and—movie marketers, maybe take note here—that makes a huge difference.

I mean, I’m glad I didn’t have to live back then!

Overall: B