King Lear (2018)

I've always had trouble sympathizing for Lear, who many describe as the central character in Shakespeare's most impressive work. I've never felt that attachment to this play preferring many of his other works, but appreciating a lot about King Lear. In Richard Eyre's film Lear is almost over the top a spoiled entitled white man, throwing temper tantrums and barely ever reckoning with his follies, the way I've often read him so much of his take on the story resonated for me.

Eyre also uses the modern convention of making the audience sympathize with the villainous bastard's plight. Instead of assuming Edmund is inherently evil due to his "illegitimate" birth as previous audiences may have, we are instead presented with his seeking revenge for being treated as such by his world, a reading which is grounded clearly in the text. I appreciated how Eyre flushed this out and founds ways to make Edmund so fascinating and despite his resolution he manages to bring everyone down.

And in the case of Lear I've never seen this as a bad thing. By focusing on the Lear family's destruction at the hands of a wronged anti-hero, Eyre manages to find a way to deal with the common problem with adapting Shakespeare to film, how to pair it down in a way that doesn't feel paired down. Lear is epic and trying to tell its story with a runtime of 115 minutes is foolhardy. But I think Eyre mostly succeeds by narrowing his focus.

Eyre also finds a nice visual esthetic for the film. Setting the story in modern England Eyre uses a palette which supports without distracting from his story.

Does he make Lear riveting? I'm not sure this production gets there. I think for fans of the cast of of Shakespeare this film presents an interesting take. But it's also not going to be the film that draws in a crowd outside that. Still it made me think a lot more about one of Shakespeare's works which is less impactful for me than most.

King Lear
Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Emma Thompson, Emily Watson, Jim Broadbent, Florence Pugh, Jim Carter, Andrew Scott, John Macmillan
Writer/Director: Richard Eyre (with William Shakespeare)