Macbeth

Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard are Scotland’s most terrifying power couple in director Justin Kurzel’s impressively realised version of The Scottish Play.

Civil War rages in Scotland. King Duncan (David Thewlis) is kept on the throne by the bloodthirsty valour of the Thane of Glamis, Macbeth (Michael Fassbender). But when three witches prophesy that Macbeth shall be Thane of Cawdor and King of Scotland hereafter fatal ambition seizes the mind of both his wife (Marion Cotillard) and he. Obstacles in his path are Duncan, and his son Malcolm (Jack Reynor); and obstacles to security as King are friend Banquo (Paddy Considine), and his son Fleance. And with a mind full of scorpions, morality and sanity soon go by the wayside for Macbeth…

Kurzel cuts the comic relief Porter scene. This is not that kind of Macbeth. This is a grimy, gory, brutal production of Shakespeare’s text. Kurzel’s film goes out of its way to make what Shakespeare had made difficult to watch (the slaughter of Lady Macduff and her household) almost unbearable. No Orson Welles castle for Macbeth here, home consists of simple wooden houses, tents, and combinations of both. Rain, mud, and blood are everywhere; men are scarred from battle, women are scarred from losing child after child. It’s a theatrical vision which becomes hallucinatory and cinematic by its fiery finale.

This was always going to be an interesting film, but the combination of Fassbender, Cotillard, and Kurzel is probably the finest screen Macbeth yet.

5/5