Justin Kurzel may well succeed in making Shakespeare cool again for mainstream cinemagoers judging by the mostly ecstatic reviews in Cannes for Macbeth.
Screened in competition on Saturday, the See-Saw Films production stars Michael Fassbender as the Scottish lord and Marion Cotillard as his ambitious wife.
Reviewers heaped praise on the Snowtown director, the leads’ performances and Adam Arkapaw’s luminous cinematography, and some are bullish about its B.O. prospects.
Transmission will launch the film shot in England and Scotland in Pctober Australia and The Weinstein Co will distribute in the US.
“Although tradition is upheld with a Dark Ages-Early Christian period setting, actually shot in Scotland for once, in most other respects Australian director Justin Kurzel filters Shakespeare's tragic story of murderous ambition through a resolutely modern sensibility,” declared The Hollywood Reporter’s Leslie Felperin.
“Comparisons with Game of Thrones will be inevitable, and not always flatteringly intended, but they won't be wide of the mark.
“With its foregrounded class conflict, horror-movie spookiness and, most importantly, use of brutal violence, it's an adaptation that has a much better chance than most Bard-based works of crossing-over to audiences beyond the art houses. The play's evergreen popularity in high-school syllabuses should help that along, as will the growing box-office draw of Michael Fassbender, sexy, charismatic and later poignant when his reason is unseated in the title role, opposite a surprisingly cast but completely persuasive Marion Cotillard as his manipulative wife.”
Variety’s Guy Lodge opined, “Fearsomely visceral and impeccably performed, it’s a brisk, bracing update, even as it remains exquisitely in period. Though the Bard’s words are handled with care by an ideal ensemble, fronted by Michael Fassbender and a boldly cast Marion Cotillard, it’s the Australian helmer’s fervid sensory storytelling that makes this a Shakespeare pic for the ages — albeit one surely too savage for the classroom.”
The Daily Telegraph’s Robbie Collin enthused, “The tragedy of Macbeth feels as vital and visceral here as it did in the hands of Roman Polanski and Akira Kurosawa, whose previous retellings are as good as Shakespeare on film gets. Kurzel’s version stands respectably beside them, and there can be few higher compliments than that.”
Felperin had one quibble: “The one constituency that probably won't look especially kindly on this will be stringent Shakespeare purists, who might start with scoffing at why three people (Todd Louiso, Jacob Koskoff and Michael Lesslie) are credited for the screenplay before Shakespeare's name even gets a mention.”
Kurzel's next film is an adaptation of the Ubisoft video game series Assassin's Creed, which will star Fassbender. Swedish actress Alicia Vikander, who got rave reviews for Ex Machina and will next be seen in Guy Ritchie's Man From U.N.C.L.E., reportedly is in talks to join the cast .