The Critic spoilers follow.
It's hard to fault Ian McKellen. Not only has he brought to life some of the most memorable roles ever seen on screen, including X-Men's Magneto and Gandalf in Lord of the Rings, he's also a Tony Award-winning actor on stage who came out as far back as the '80s, a time when very few stars were brave enough to do so, and was one of the founding members of Stonewall.
Sixty years into his career, McKellen is still going strong at the age of 85 with one of his juiciest roles yet, that of Jimmy Erskine, a renowned theatre critic whose job it is to find fault in others. The story, penned by Oscar-nominated writer Patrick Marber, is set in '30s London, a time when critics were actually respected and paid well and not abused on the daily by trolls online.
Yet Erskine takes great delight in writing vitriol of his own, especially when it comes to the work of an actress named Nina Land (Gemma Arterton) who's not living up to the potential Jimmy sees in her. As cruel as he can be, Erskine's withering putdowns are also darkly funny ("replace damp squib with wet blanket!") and it's clear McKellen is having the time of his life playing this up.
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For example, when Nina's mother Leslie Manville tries to speak to Jimmy at her daughter's latest play, he instantly storms up to the manager and declares he "must be protected from the general public".
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The audacity of being approached by a mere mortal in a public space is enough to send him spinning, and in moments like this, Erskine is endlessly watchable.
Despite his character being deeply egotistical and rather vile at points, McKellen wields his natural born charisma to debaucherous effect here, winning you over regardless. And that's true even when things turn sour and Jimmy begins manipulating Nina to save his own skin following some big changes at the paper where he works.
If only The Critic itself remained as watchable as the cruel critic at the heart of it all.
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Just as the tension is supposed to intensify with blackmail and even a dash of murder, the story itself loses much of its thrust despite McKellen's best efforts. But that's through no fault of his or the rest of the cast either, which includes Mark Strong, Lesley Manville, Romola Garai, Ben Barnes and Nikesh Patel, who all emerge unscathed.
While Marber's earlier scripts savagely cut through to the core of what made their sad, bitter characters tick, The Critic lacks the plot cohesion of Closer or Notes on a Scandal, and there's less willingness to engage with the deeper themes at hand.
Erskine's live-in secretary also happens to be his younger Black lover at a time when having gay sex of any kind was a criminal offence – before you even account for wider issues of race and age. Yet the script barely grapples with this power dynamic or how Jimmy uses a woman's physicality to undercut his enemies and make examples of them.
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That's the real meat of the script, yet Marber's writing and perfectly adequate direction from filmmaker Anand Tucker refuse to engage with this in what Erskine himself would surely describe as a somewhat shallow and insufficient approach.
Yet one area where The Critic does excel, aside from the savage barbs of its titular critic, is in a scene where Erskine is arrested by police and interrogated over his sexuality following a public display of affection. It's harrowing to see anyone in that position stripped of their dignity with such cruelty, and especially when it's someone who's prided themselves so much on their dignity up until that point.
It's easy to forget now that homosexuality was illegal in the UK up until 1967, and the subsequent rights our community won took even longer to attain. That means there are plenty of queer people still alive today, including McKellen himself, who had to live in a world where their very existence was deemed illegal.
With so much emphasis on either modern storytelling or the AIDS epidemic of the '80s and '90s, this other painful chapter of queer history is rarely explored to the extent it deserves on screen. Although The Critic could have gone in even harder on this, it's clear that Jimmy's cruelty, his need to attack others with his words, comes from living at a time when his very existence was open to violence and critique.
That's not to excuse Erskine's rudeness, as funny as it might be to watch in the context of this film. But it does help paint the picture of a man who takes joy in bullying because he himself is a victim too. Plus it's heartening to see an older queer person depicted as an actual sexual being for once, despite our reservations about the relationship itself.
So as easy as it might be to find fault with The Critic's more lacklustre components, the film itself is neither a "damp squib" or a "wet blanket". Although, much like Nina's acting, there's still plenty of untapped potential that's frustrating to watch go to waste.
The Critic is now available to watch in cinemas.
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After teaching in England and South Korea, David turned to writing in Germany, where he covered everything from superhero movies to the Berlin Film Festival.
In 2019, David moved to London to join Digital Spy, where he could indulge his love of comics, horror and LGBTQ+ storytelling as Deputy TV Editor, and later, as Acting TV Editor.
David has spoken on numerous LGBTQ+ panels to discuss queer representation and in 2020, he created the Rainbow Crew interview series, which celebrates LGBTQ+ talent on both sides of the camera via video content and longform reads.
Beyond that, David has interviewed all your faves, including Henry Cavill, Pedro Pascal, Olivia Colman, Patrick Stewart, Ncuti Gatwa, Jamie Dornan, Regina King, and more — not to mention countless Drag Race legends.
As a freelance entertainment journalist, David has bylines across a range of publications including Empire Online, Radio Times, INTO, Highsnobiety, Den of Geek, The Digital Fix and Sight & Sound.
