We love to hate the critics but eagerly read their reviews especially those that achieve fame from their acerbic reviews. Sir Ian McKellen plays the wizened, revered, and feared pen that creates and destroys the lives it touches.
It’s London in the 1930s and we are brought into many world’sof rich, poor, upper-class, working-class, straight and gay sexand emerging right-wing politics.
A struggling theatre actress, Nina Land (Gemma Arterton), in her 30’s has not quite made it. The critic, Jimmy Erskine (McKellen) revels in cutting down her every performance. Frustrated and on the advice of her mother (Lesley Manville),Nina decides to confront Jimmy. The meeting doesn’t create the conflict she expects, and a strange bond forms between them.Teacher and pupil, mentor and mentee, father and daughter, you know what I mean.
They both need something from each other. Nina to achieve the stardom she craves and Jimmy to save his fast-flagging newspaper career. This job defines Jimmy and allows him to indulge in a privileged, overly extravagant and at times, dangerous world. The thought of retirement even at his advanced age is inconceivable.
The story evolves through blackmail and the desire to achieve at almost any cost. There is forbidden love between the critic, his man-servant and others and love triangles with the painter (Ben Barnes) and the recently promoted newspaper proprietor, Viscount David Brooke (Mark Strong).
As if to get into the minds of many of the characters, the cameraat times is right up against the actor’s face. We want to know what are they thinking and what they will they do next?
Ultimately, there will be a price to be paid for what the protagonists want.
This movie is worth seeing.
