A Beautiful Wandering Mess in David Lowery’s The Green Knight
/David Lowery’s The Green Knight is confusing and confounding. Baffling. Disorienting even. The longer this film went on, the less sure I was that I had a grasp on what the piece or the director was trying to convey. It’s been weeks and I still don’t understand what the point is.
Praise where due, there are no weak links in the cast. Dev Patel’s Gawain is craven but remains especially compelling once on his journey. Alicia Vikander shines in her parts, both as Gawain’s playful and wistful lover Essel and as the enigmatic doppelgänger. Ralph Ineson, the eponymous Green Knight, manages incredible range with just his eyes and voice buried beneath a beautifully rendered prosthetic, managing tender and imposing in equal measure across his scenes.
The film is also beautifully shot and constructed. Lowery has an undeniable talent for creating interesting and beautiful scenes out of the most mundane and dreary environments. He makes the most of talented actors but manages the stellar performances so they never distract from the scenes. There’s a lot to be said for the nuance his choices as director bring as well; for example, the Christmas revels in the film are dark, bare, and subdued, emphasizing Arthur as a king (and warrior) past his prime.
An adaptation of the 14th century English poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the story follows the knight Sir Gawain and his conflict with the Green Knight, a man literally green of skin, hair, eyes, armor, and horse. On New Year’s Eve, the Green Knight challenges anyone of King Arthur’s court to strike him but they must accept the same blow a year later in the Green Chapel. Gawain beheads the knight and then watches the torso retrieve the head and ride away. A year later, Gawain journeys to the Green Chapel to submit to the Green Knight, for good or ill.
Gawain’s journey forces him to face the conditions of his oath as a knight and as a Christian; temptations of selfish, dishonest, and sexual natures; his own savagery and weakness; and unexpected mercy and forgiveness. The poem is a coming-of-age story for Gawain and asks the reader to contemplate what it means to be good, if being good is great and if being great is good?
The film’s plot is effectively the same and, give or take some scenes and details, begins the same way. This Gawain aspires to knighthood and to sit among the “legends” of the Round Table. This ambition is shallow, however, as Gawain spends all his time whoring and drinking instead of performing any great deeds. His journey is forced by the expectations of his mother (Sarita Choudhury), implied to be the sorceress Morgan Le Fay, and his uncle, an aging King Arthur (Sean Harris). “Is it wrong to want greatness for you?” Arthur asks. Conversely, Essel pushes Gawain to foreswear his oath and stay with her: “Why greatness? Why is goodness not enough?” The film sets itself up to walk a similar moral, theme, and trajectory as the poem. Goodness or greatness? Why one and not the other? There is interest in the fact that Gawain of the film is arguably neither.
Once Gawain departs on his journey in the second act, though, the film falls off the rails. Moments that enhance these themes are present but buried in scenes that feel obtuse, oblique, and too often completely irrelevant. Act two is a thematic fever dream of existentialism, mortality, and powerlessness. Questions arise if everything in the film has been a hallucination induced by either hunger, mushrooms, or premature death. The third act also sees the revelation of an entire new set of themes and ideas brought to the forefront but never superseding or supplanting the themes of the previous two acts. A tangent with the ghost of St. Winifred, pregnant giants, and his lover’s doppelgänger are all new elements to the story, among many others, while an extended portion of the poem is condensed to a bewildering denouement in act three.
My issue with the film is that it doesn’t say anything of substance. Where the poem is specific and pointed, the film is meandering and vague. The adaptations of The Green Knight are all intriguing but often they feel like poor fits at best, completely out of place, or meaningless at worst. With new themes being introduced with every act, nothing is ever explored with real depth. Perhaps intent on not repeating the messaging of his source material, it seems Lowery forgot to make sure that his film said anything at all.
Andrew Gilvary
Andrew is a former graduate of the University of Ottawa where he got his B.A. with Double Major in English Literature and Classical History. He enjoys doing nerdy things and cuddling his cat.
