Coriolanus
2011
***
Director: Ralph Fiennes
Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Gerard Butler, Vanessa Redgrave, Brian Cox, Jessica Chastain, Paul Jesson, James Nesbitt
The victorious Caius Martius returns to Rome, where he is honoured with the agnomen Coriolanus. The general plans to run for consul, but his contempt for the common people is his undoing, and he ends up switching allegiances. Ralph Fiennes' directorial debut is an initially cold but ultimately powerful film about a fearsome soldier with terrible people skills. The performances are strong all around. Fiennes brings William Shakespeare's lesser known play to a modern day setting. It helps to give the story more relevance, but mostly as a metaphor. Strictly as a drama, the implausible plotting, the primitive character psychologies and the Shakespearean English never allowed me to forget that the source material is 400 years old.
