Imagine an acerbic love child miraculously spawned by Addison DeWitt of “All About Eve” and Waldo Lydecker of “Laura,” with John Simon serving as midwife, and you will be prepared for Jimmy Erskine, the viciously witty and mercilessly demanding title character played with utterly delicious flamboyance by Ian McKellen in “The Critic.” Directed by Anand Tucker (“Shopgirl”) and written by Patrick Marber (“Notes on a Scandal”), the film is a heady brew of period thriller, compelling melodrama and jet-black comedy, and the second most remarkable thing about it is how seamlessly these diverse elements gel.
Even more remarkable, however, is McKellen’s multifaceted portrayal of the man aptly known as “The Monster,” both behind his back and to his face, in the film’s world of 1930s London theater.
Erskine takes unseemly delight in savagely shredding the productions (and performances) he finds lacking, and the physical appearances of actors he deems unattractive. He insists that his cruel critiques constitute only a part of his ongoing campaign to uphold his lofty standards. But it’s transparently obvious that he truly enjoys using bitchy bon mots and brutal put-downs as offensive weapons.
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Evidently, readers of his newspaper have taken just as much delight in savoring his acidic reviews for well into 40 years — well, at least those readers who have never been at the wrong end of his razor-sharp pen.
A lesser actor cast as Erskine — say, one who would have targeted the critic’s cruelest cuts — might have been content to simply give a performance that could be labeled Oscar Mayer and sold by the slice. But there is more, much more, to McKellen’s rendering of Erskine than uproariously unfettered misanthropy. Repeatedly rising to the challenge of maneuvering through the film’s myriad plot twists and tonal shifts, McKellen is by turns imperiously hilarious, archly devious, forlornly melancholy and pathetically desperate. Indeed, he actually manages to generate sympathy for The Monster, and not only because he is openly gay at a time when homosexuality was outlawed in London.
We’re introduced to Erskine as he makes a characteristically grand entrance to a revival of a Jacobean tragedy, and is visibly appalled as he endures the production’s glaring (in his opinion) flaws. He then goes home to dictate to Tom (Alfred Enoch), his conspicuously younger manservant, typist and longtime companion, penning a notice that singles out for industrial-strength venom the leading lady, Nina Land (Gemma Arterton, a standout in an extremely tricky role). His description of her displaying “all the grace of a startled mule” is one of the nicer things he writes about her. And, truth to tell, while his words are harsh, they’re not all that far from fair.
Unfortunately, Erskine already is on shaky ground with Viscount David Brooke (a subtly expressive Mark Strong), who has recently replaced his deceased father as editor of The London Chronicle, and doesn’t share his high regard for Erskine’s flamethrower prose. Even more unfortunately, as is revealed more gradually, Brooke, a straight-laced family man, has long nursed a secret crush on Land.
But even that is not enough for Erskine to get the sack. It’s not until he and Tom are hassled by fascist Blackshirts during a late-night stroll on a London side street, then arrested by policemen even more intolerant of openly gay men – especially gay Black men like Tom — that Erskine is given his notice. Not surprisingly, he doesn’t take his dismissal lying down, and searches for a way to convince Brooke to rehire him.
“All men have secrets,” Erskine says. “I’ll find his.” He finds exactly what he’s looking for when he discovers Brooke’s regard for Nina, and craftily enlists her in his scheme to blackmail his once and future boss. For her part, Nina is so insecure about her acting ability, and so eager to win Erskine’s approval, that despite her initial reluctance, she agrees to sleep with Brooke in exchange for career-boosting rave reviews from the critic. Nothing good comes from this.
Inspired by the novel “Curtain Call” by Anthony Quinn — not that Anthony Quinn, but the prolific author who, no joke, was a film critic from 1998 to 2013 for The Independent — “The Critic” is cleverly structured as an interlocking chain of turnabouts, betrayals, unsettling revelations and unexpected deaths. It’s as smartly contrived as a bedroom farce, leading to an ending as inevitable as one in a Greek tragedy, with an effectively ambiguous final line to bring down the curtain.
David Higgs’ noirish cinematography and Lucien Surren’s solid production design generously enhance the period flavor, and the supporting players — including Lesley Manville as Nina’s supportive but not entirely uncritical mother — are well-cast and accomplished across the board. Indeed, there really isn’t much to criticize in “The Critic.” And when it comes to McKellen’s singularly outstanding lead performance, the only suitable response lies somewhere between admiration and astonishment. Bravo.