CORIOLANUS
Directed by Ralph Fiennes
with Jessica Chastain as Virgilia
It pains me to write this, but I finally saw a Jessica Chastain movie I wasn't completely enamoured with! Lest you think this is due to her limited screen time as the hero's devoted wife Virgilia, I am a big fan of both William Shakespeare and Ralph Fiennes, so something else is afoot ... (methinks).
A 'problem play'
Sh's second to last play is a difficult one to adapt under any circumstances -- the characters are one-dimensional and unlikeable, the story lacks any of the complexity of human character that mark his greatest tragedies. Nor does it offer modern-day viewers any of the over-the-top madness of Titus Andronicus (effectively adpated for the screen by Julie Taymor in 1999). This is no actor's vanity project, either. Fiennes shows real talent directing his actors and using the language of film to convey a story.
Fiennes updates the action in the play to a nameless, battle-scarred European country, complete with 24-hour CNN-style news channel providing the necessary, if dry, explanation of enemies and troop movements (a clever device that Fiennes overuses). To compensate for the drier aspects of the plot, Fiennes devotes a large amount of screen time to the warfare itself. This treatment owes an obvious debt to the time Fiennes spent on the set of The Hurt Locker, shooting his memorable cameo in that film. The scenes of urban warfare that earn the title character, Caius Martius, a new moniker ("Coriolanus" after the city he captured) and the opportunity to rule Rome, are bloody, tense, and belong in another movie!
These wordless 'action scenes' may serve to open-up the story beyond the confines of the stage, but you cannot watch Shakespeare without thinking "maybe he had another reason for conveying the action with a few choice lines of dialogue instead." I found myself impatiently waiting out these unnecessary scenes, for I knew the real action was back in Rome.
The citizens of Rome are a fickle lot
Boy, are they! They change allegiances faster than Republicans choosing a Presidential nominee. And like all Shakespearean rabble, it doesn't take much to sway them. Coriolanus' refusal to curry favor with them or the Roman Senate doom him. The Roman tribunes (here they look like British members of Parliament) are similarly malleable, and are responsible for Coriolanus' exile from Rome.
It is at this point when the movie finally takes off, on the wings of the Bard's brilliant command of the English language. The monologues of Coriolanus and his willful mother Volumnia are priceless when delivered by outstanding Shakespearean actors like Fiennes and Vanessa Redgrave. Their performances make this movie a must-see for Shakespeareans and provides a satisfying payoff at the bloody end of this 122-minute saga.
It is a shame the character of Virgilia wasn't given a similar scene. Poor Jessica Chastain is reduced to standing around looking pretty, and shedding the occasional tear (rolling it down her flawless, porcelain cheek on cue!). She performs both duties exquisitely. Let's hope Fiennes remembers her the next time he directs Shakespeare (he has too much talent not to try again): she would make a lovely Ophelia.
