Macbeth (2015) Review

Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth feels lived in and brutalised, with its emphasis on authentic Scottish landscapes, muddy costuming and gritty violence. But this isn’t some post-Game of Thrones showpiece jumping on the fantasy sex-and-guts bandwagon, this is confident and impressive filmmaking, and a fantastic homage to The Bard.

Firstly, it’s impeccably acted. Fassbender is incredible. He’s visibly plagued by doubt and desperation, often squinting into nothingness as the witches’ prophecies haunt and entice him. His hollowed look as he dispatches families of potential opponents is one of madness entrenched in humanity. His physical naturalism accentuates the profound internal conflict far more convincingly than Olivier’s melodrama or Patrick Stewart’s overtly bold Thespianism. He’s just remarkable. Lady Macbeth is often described, alongside Anna Karenina, as the ultimate challenge for actresses to confront, and Cotillard nails it. She is nuanced, as vindictive as she is sympathetic. Her final soliloquy confronting the ghost of her baby is utterly heartbreaking. Paddy Considine is wonderfully despairing as Banquo, and Jack Reynor’s Malcolm is fantastically timid as he confronts his father’s murderer, before embracing his regal charisma in his return to his home. The screenplay is excellent, retaining the bulk of the better dialogue and cutting much of the filler, shaping an intrinsically difficult plot easy to follow but maintains that delicate balance between the fantastical and the muddily grounded.

Ecstasy is a hell of a drug.

It’s gorgeously shot, with quaking browns and beautiful greens and vehement reds (especially in the jaw-dropping climax) colliding amidst Shakespeare’s dense dialogue. Equally, the symbolism is constant and intricate, the literal and metaphorical ghosts of children and impotence hanging over the film like a bad smell. Interestingly, Kurzel includes the idea that Lady Macbeth’s malignance and Macbeth’s mental weakness is propagated by a recently dead child; which logically underscores the importance of heirship and legacy which is vaguely alluded to in the original text. It becomes one of the most important themes in the film, though obviously greed, revenge and existentialism are the primary thematic drivers. Fassbender and Cotillard conflate their lusts, both carnal and bloody, twice; but Kurzel intelligently mirrors these moments to illustrate the reversal in their power dynamic. Psychosexuality is entwined in their hunger for authority, and the seducer manipulates the seduced in more than desire. Kurzel’s imagery is often cruel, for instance the burning of Macduff’s family initially appears to be glossed over and ignored for the audience’s sake, a fleeting break from the remorselessness, before Kurzel pans his camera away from the calm sea to the smouldering corpses of innocent children, their ashes crashing into the face of a moribund Cotillard, and Fassbender remains as tranquil and unfettered as the oceans he’s conquered, bathing in the light of his sadism. The film is embedded with incredibly powerful moments like this, including Macbeth’s nihilistic monologue over his dead wife, the delivery of ‘my life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury. It means nothing,’-simply one of the most devastating lines in literature,  a genuine punch to the gut. Furthermore the final shot of Fleance running into the red mist, recalling the red curtain-rising opening credits, portrays the persistence of violence and vengeance in this Realpolitik universe. This world is relentless, traumatisingly murky, and wholly unapologetic.

Naturally it isn’t perfect; while Jed Kurzel’s score is effective, it is occasionally overbearing and intrusive in scenes where silence and absence is essential; the gaping vacuity of existence needs to be understated when Macbeth realises the arbitrariness of his genocide. Given the limited running time, it’s perhaps understandable why Macbeth’s capitulation to greed in the opening Act is underdeveloped and rushed, but it feels initially jarring. And the ethicality in transposing a dead child, while I consider it an intriguing narrative prop in context, is questionable, as it categorically shifts Macbeth’s motivation from drowning in greed and vanity to psychosomatic instability from grief.

But these are minor gripes. This is sophisticated, layered and amicably performed. Uncompromising and masterfully accomplished, Kurzel’s Macbeth is one of the best Shakespeare adaptations ever made.