Something Wicked This Way Comes Again

One half of the Coen brothers, Joel Coen, brought to the screen another adaptation of The Scottish Play, 2021's The Tragedy of Macbeth. It's a minimalist, stagebound film, its look and pacing strongly reminiscent of Orson Welles' 1948 adaptation of Macbeth. Denzil Washington and Frances McDormand are both quite competent, if not especially interesting, in the lead roles. Mostly I came away feeling like Coen was not able to rise to the level of the source material.

It'd only been six years since the Macbeth with Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard. Coen's version is better than that shallow, overcooked turkey. But Coen's version perhaps suffers for going too far in the opposite direction. Washington and McDormand often deliver their lines in a strikingly dispassionate manner. As though they know the world turns on murder and betrayal and it looks like this is the kind assignment that was put on their desk this morning.

I think this is why critics often talked about this version really exploring Macbeth and Lady Macbeth as worldlier, older people. It made me think, maybe this play is better if at least one of them is young. Maybe a young, avaricious, beautiful Lady Macbeth drives her homebody husband to getting her wealth, or maybe a confused young Macbeth is spurred by a bitter, older and more cynical Lady Macbeth. Both of them being older both feel kind of pointless. Like, what are you two doing? It's the Dark Ages, you'll be king and queen for, what, two years? And this version removes references to Lady Macbeth's pregnancy.

Denzil Washington is really good at sounding credible. I always feel like this is a real guy going through these problems. But a little artifice would've been nice in something like the "To-morrow and to-morrow and to-morrow" soliloquy. He rattles it off so casually. Like so many times in the film, you think, "Well, this guy's already checked out anyway." And, yeah, you can say that reflects "a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing." But I feel like that line should come with a shock of revelation, or bitter pronouncement, rather then sounding like he was forced to actually explain to someone how boring he thinks everything is.

Both he and Lady Macbeth are upstaged by Ross, played by Alex Hassell, whom Coen turns into a schemer. It's heavily implied that he murdered Lady Macbeth and hid Banquo's son for his own schemes. Why? To say that this world is full of ruthless schemers? We knew that, Joel. The point here is to focus on the psychology of two of them. Oh, well.

It's not bad. The action sequences are interesting. There's some good sword fighting at the end. Still, you're better off watching the Orson Welles version or the Roman Polanski version.

Joel Coen's The Tragedy of Macbeth is available on AppleTV+.