The Green Knight

Writer/director David Lowery adapts the much examined and frequently dramatized 14th-century poem “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” into an atmospheric medieval fantasy with a pronounced contemporary subtext. The Green Knight stars Dev Patel as Gawain, the callow nephew of an ageing king. Nearly thirty years old with no heroic deeds under his belt, and not yet a knight, Gawain is living out the Arthurian equivalent of a prolonged adolescence. He’s an indolent, privileged fellow who ignores his duties, spends most of his time with his low-born girlfriend, and lives with his powerful, well-connected mom who seems much more involved in securing his future than he is.

Though they are not specifically named in the movie, Gawain’s uncle (Sean Harris) is King Arthur and his mother (Sarita Choudhury) is the enchantress Morgan le Fay.  One Christmas, King Arthur takes an interest in his nephew and asks him to speak of his great deeds. Gawain is embarrassed that he has none. When the monstrous Green Knight barges into Arthur's court during their holiday feast and offers a challenge to the Round Table knights, Gawain jumps at the chance to prove himself. The Green Knight states that anyone able to land a blow on him will win his great green axe, but they must then travel to his Green Chapel the following Christmas and receive an equal blow in return.

Gawain’s ability to cut the head off this interloper at a Christmas dinner is not an especially valiant or heroic deed but it elevates his status—though it doesn’t change his feckless behavior. As the end of the next year approaches, The King reminds Gawain of his commitment and the young man, eager to prove his honor, embarks on a journey to face the Green Knight again. Since the severing of the mystical being’s head is far less consequential to him than the same fate would be to the mortal Gawain, the stakes would seem high.

The inexperienced Sir Gawain, a “green” knight himself, is quickly overpowered by a group of very young bandits and mystified by the sexual overtures of the Lord and Lady he spends a night with. He’s rather lost during most of the film, and whatever he learns over the course of his journey doesn’t feel especially hard-won or like the early accomplishments of a once and future king born to achieve greatness. That Sir Gawain is significant at all seems, according to this movie, to be the result of simply having his story told. He honors his commitment, but his accomplishments are hardly the stuff of legend.

Lowery’s adaptation of the Middle English poem plays like a sword-and-sorcery equivalent of the revisionist western. It’s less a meditation on chivalry and the honor of the knights of Arthurian stories and more a deconstruction of traditional ideas of heroism and masculinity. The film marks a pronounced end of an era. In this case, the end of the time of legends; the knights of Camelot are withered old men, mythical creatures are departing the Earth, and the powers of Merlin, Morgan le Fay, and other magical beings are waning. Perhaps Lowery is implying that we in 2021 are at a similar significant turning point in history.

This would all seem like heady stuff offering plenty to chew on, but the movie is surprisingly thin. A curious mix of grand ambition and minimalist whimsy, The Green Knight is lovely to look at but too often feels like actors LARPing. Patel manages to make the unlikable protagonist attractive and engaging, but his behavior frequently feels anachronistic. Perhaps that’s intentional. But Joel Edgerton as the lord of the castle near the Green Knight’s chapel also seems out of place and out of time. The always-welcome Alicia Vikander, on the other hand, brings depth to her dual role as the lady of the castle and Gawain’s prostitute girlfriend. And Ralph Ineson (who memorably played the father in Robert Eggers’ The Witch) embodies the titular creature in delightful ways.

Lowery’s uneven but rather fascinating directing career ranges from the moody crime drama Ain't Them Bodies Saints (2013), to the Disney live-action remake of Pete's Dragon (2016) to the minimalist meditation on life, loss, and legacy A Ghost Story (2017), to the winning, pseudo-biopic The Old Man & the Gun (2018). He also edited acclaimed indies like Yen Tan’s Ciao (2008), Shane Carruth’s Upstream Color (2013) and Alex Ross Perry’s Listen Up Philip (2014). He’s a filmmaker I’m always interested in watching, but I was unable to fully engage with The Green Knight.