Had an Arthurian epic ever looked so rich?
The Green Knight opens with Gawain (Dev Patel), the nephew of King Arthur (Sean Harris), in need of proving himself worthy of greatness and being pushed to find glory by his powerful mother (Sarita Choudhury).
Having lived a life of roguish bad behaviour, Gawain is given a chance to earn fame and riches when the monstrous Green Knight (Ralph Ineson) arrives at Camelot one Christmas and challenges a knight to strike him - as long as he can return the blow in a year’s time.
Gawain takes the challenge and cuts the knight’s head off before the Green Knight picks it up and reattaches it before requesting they face each other in a year’s time.
After a year of being acclaimed as a hero, Gawain sets off on his request to a reckoning with the Green Knight...
Capturing an unsettling yet otherworldly atmosphere, director David Lowery has crafted an enigmatic, thematically rich and handsome piece of filmmaking that offers a bounty of aesthetic pleasures.
Joined by longtime collaborator Daniel Hart’s prickly score and Andrew Droz Plamermo’s painterly imagery, Lowery has crafted a genre film of fantasy that is rich in gravity, reality and the enigmatic and frightening danger of the supernatural.
At the heart of the piece is another performance demonstrating true star quality from Dev Patel, portraying a hero with Gawain who is uncertain of his own goodness, revelling in roguishness but clearly tormented by demons related to his mother, Morgan le Fay, played with quiet power by Choudhury.
Another fascinating choice is the use of Oscar winner Alicia Vikander in the dual roles of Gawain’s peasant lover Essel and the aristocratic Lady that Gawain encounters on his fateful quest. Each is wonderfully differentiated by Vikander but still so clearly offering two sides to Gawain’s desires.
The cast is populated with wonderful supporting turns, with Barry Keoghan as a snarling scavenger, Joel Edgerton as a welcoming but unpredictable Lord, along with the sickly-looking Sean Harris and Kate Dickie as a mature but decaying King Arthur and Queen Guinevere, respectively.
Ever present is the looming power of the Earth and nature, combined with the weirding ways of magic and unnatural curses, which challenges the stuffy and conservative nature of the film’s Camelot.
There is a sense of social commentary on the modern world’s preoccupation with excesses and how far nature will be pushed before fighting back, underlined by a speech from Vikander towards the end of the film.
But also there is the much comparatively smaller issue of Gawain’s soul as he searches for meaning in a world prizing only specific ideas of glory, which Patel captures wonderfully and Lowery exploits his physical expressions in a lengthy and visually stunning montage towards the end of the film.
Ultimately, The Green Knight is an engrossing, magnetic and well-judged embarrassment of riches.
Verdict
The Green Knight is a breathtaking, bold and beautiful Arthurian epic from director David Lowery, anchored by a tortured star turn from Dev Patel.
The Green Knight is out now in UK cinemas and on Amazon Prime Video.
What is your favourite film or television series based on Arthurian legend? Let us know in the comments below.
