The Critic - 2023 film review

The Critic is a film scripted by Patrick Marber and based on a novel from 2015 with which I'm unfamiliar, Curtain Call by Anthony Quinn. It's an intriguing drama with thriller elements, set in 1934, and dealing with interesting questions about the role and responsibilities of a critic. In this case, we're talking about a theatre critic, but similar principles apply to other forms of criticism, I'd say. And I found it thought-provoking as well as decent entertainment.

Ian McKellen plays Jimmy Erskine, a long-time critic for a right-wing tabloid newspaper. Erskine's smugness is something that McKellen conveys extremely well. He is comfortable and selfish, and despite the fact that he is a gay man in a potentially hostile environment, he is accustomed to having his own way. Things seem likely to change, however, when the newspaper baron dies and his son (played by Mark Strong, who handles a tricky role with great sensitivity) takes over.

Erskine has a history of giving negative reviews to Nina Land (Gemma Arterton) and he takes malicious pleasure in crafting his venomous words so as to inflict maximum misery on his wretched target. My feeling is that a critic's starting point should always be to try to understand what the subject of his or her criticism is trying to achieve, and make judgments accordingly, but with as much compassion as is compatible with expressing a fair and honest opinion. Erskine takes a different approach.

The plot thickens as Erskine begins to form a strange bond with Nina, only to exploit her cruelly when he finds his position threatened. Some of the crime elements of the story are plotted rather perfunctorily, I think because Marber's main interest lies in the issues he is tackling. But the story is strong enough for this not to matter too much. The excellent cast includes Lesley Manville, Alfred Enoch, Romola Garai, and Claire Skinner, all of whom do good work.