I’m quite disappointed today because there’s a movie I’ve been waiting to tell you about. I wrote the review in December and had it scheduled to appear on this site that month. But I was told it wouldn’t open in St. Louis until today, so I held off on posting it. Then, two days ago, I got an email saying it’s not going to start its run here today but there’s no new release date set, so would I please not publish it yet.
I wouldn’t be frustrated if the movie in question sucked. But this one is so good that, if it had come out in December, it would have been number one on my Best Movies Of 2024 list. So, I’m champing at the bit to tell you about the movie and encourage you to see it, but since you can’t yet, I’m keeping my word and staying mum. For now.
In the meantime, I’ll tell you about “The Critic,” which I missed when it originally hit screens in September, 2024, but recently caught up with via video on demand (it’s five bucks on Apple and Prime Video).
Ian McKellen stars as Jimmy Erskine, lead theater critic for a London newspaper named The Daily Chronicle in the 1930s. He’s known for the acidity of his reviews and takes pride in being severe, particularly when it comes to Nina Land (Gemma Arterton), whose performances he despises — and never fails to say so about every production in which she appears.
The drama of this story comes from a career crisis Jimmy is facing. David Brooke (Mark Strong), who has inherited the paper from his father, is making cutbacks. One of his targets is Jimmy, whose homosexuality he detests. When Jimmy is caught by the police soliciting yet another young man in a park for acts that are flagrantly illegal in Britain at the time, Brooke has had enough. He gives Jimmy one month’s notice to write a few more reviews before he is dropped from the payroll.
After decades as a critic, with the attendant free tickets to every show and grudging respect of theater people in London’s West End, the thought of losing his platform horrifies Jimmy. But he has a secret up his sleeve — he knows that Brooke, a married man with children, has the hots for Nina. So he devises a plan to use her to lure Brooke into a honey trap in exchange for never writing another bad word about her, but instead praising her every stage appearance as among the greatest he’s seen. Jimmy would then use his knowledge of their rendezvous to blackmail Brooke into reversing his decision, allowing Jimmy to continue using his poison pen for years to come.
McKellen, eighty-three years old when “The Critic” was filmed, has said in interviews he knew the character Jimmy very well, having spent many years as a closeted gay man who never had much use for theater critics in his long career. That history helps him imbue the protagonist with a cunning but weary tone. His performance alone would have made “The Critic” worthwhile, but he’s ably assisted by Arterton (how does she glow like that?), Strong, and Alfred Enoch as Jimmy’s live-in secretary/lover.
I’m giving “The Critic” an 8 out of 10.