The Green Knight (Dev Patel, Alicia Vikander, Joel Edgerton)

This is crappy: pulled from UK (and by extension) Irish release schedules just two weeks before release. THR reporting it could be going straight to streaming, with uncertainty about the COVID shitshow in the UK also cited as a likely factor in the sudden change. Things ain't back to normal yet.

All speculation here, but I reckon the distributor was left with a film they didn't quite know what to do with - and any uncertainty about cinemas in the UK was a good excuse to change plans. The distributor in question (Entertainment) is an odd one at the best of times, so they'd likely find an offer from a streaming platform to take the film off their hands hard to resist.

But we'll see - could just be a temporary delay.

Well given I watched in an Irish cinema (Light House) a few hours ago… yes it is out in cinemas :)

Also on Amazon Prime as of today.

First things first… it’s been a while since I’ve seen Ireland looking so well on screen! As someone who has always lived near the Wicklow / Dublin mountains, this really captures the sort of haunting isolation (with a dash of desolation for good measure) you experience if you go for a wander in the woods or the mountains. This is a film that really has an earthiness to it, thanks to the eerie filter this puts over familiar landscapes.

It’s a looker on the whole - very modern in its compositional decisions, but with some very striking surreal imagery always adding extra spice to proceedings. It’s relatively rare for fantasy imagery to be properly mysterious in cinema, particularly American cinema. But this does an excellent job: the careful mix of special effects, art design and the aforementioned earthiness really capture the mystical, eerie nature of folklore and epic tales that’s often neglected.

It also thankfully channels the episodic nature of such tales. This film is at its best as a series of odd, ghostly and elliptical encounters with various spirits and odd folk. It’s instantly intriguing when a crazed Barry Keoghan shows up, or when some seemingly kind characters with bizarre, even unknowable motivations complicate the quest.

I was certainly less engaged by the unhurried setup in the first act (although the Green Knight himself is an incredible creation), but thankfully the final act is an excellent, smartly directed conclusion. Patel is good, but there’s often not a whole lot to latch onto when he’s on his own (thankfully there’s a fox companion to liven things up 🦊). But generally I found this quite the beguiling watch: once the film settles into its main rhythm, I was always intrigued by what lay ahead. I’ve had mixed thoughts on most of David Lowery’s previous films (I’ve liked most without loving them), but I’d say this is his most satisfying to date - it has the arthouse sensibilities of A Ghost Story, but also has learned lessons from Pete’s Dragon (itself a more grounded, ‘earthier’ take on a modern children’s film).

I’m glad it did get a cinema release in the end - not just because its striking visuals deserve a big canvas, but also because its cavernous soundscape sounds really impressive over a good theatre setup. But given current circumstances, also great that it’s available to stream in 4K simultaneously :)