Those steeped in Arthurian legends may suspect Gawain’s mother is none other than the enchantress Morgan Le Fay, who learned the dark arts from the powerful wizard Merlin. Instead, with a group of women, she seemingly casts a spell that might have something to do with the Green Knight. Onscreen, as the knights and nobility celebrate Christmas in the castle (though it’s New Year’s Eve in the poem), Gawain’s mother (Sarita Choudhury) refuses to join in. Gawain’s uncle and aunt, King Arthur (Sean Harris) and Queen Guinevere (Kate Dickie) are getting older, and wish to see their nephew - who, in the film, stands to inherit the throne - gain nobility and stature, and quit being such a dissipated doofus. In the film, unlike the poem, Gawain has a love interest named Essel, a young woman (played by Alicia Vikander) who is a sex worker, and dreams of spending her life with him. In other words, he’s also “green,” and that’s an important part of the story. In Lowery’s film, Gawain is young, impetuous, prone to carousing, and ashamed of how little of his life has been spent on bold and brave exploits. In the poem, Gawain is already a beloved and respected member of the Round Table, noted for his chivalry. The “green knight” of the traditional title refers to the knight with whom Gawain tangles, whose skin is described as green. It only occurred to me after seeing The Green Knight that the film’s title, which diverges from the poem’s title, might have two meanings - and point to some of the biggest differences between the movie and its source material. Generous spoilers follow for The Green Knight. One Christmas, after a night of merriment, Gawain confronts a mysterious, magical knight, and that encounter sets him on an epic quest to face his fate. Patel plays Gawain, the nephew of King Arthur, who in this rendering aspires to be a storied and legendary knight of his uncle’s Round Table. The Green Knight takes the same approach to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, with some tweaks, expansions, and twists that adapt an epic poem into a lush, meditative, eerie film. (Lowery is also completing work on Peter Pan & Wendy, which could slot comfortably into this list.) Among his films are Ain’t Them Bodies Saints (2013), about the consequences for a Bonnie and Clyde-style couple A Ghost Story (2017), about the long, long arm of a tragic romance and The Old Man and the Gun (2018), about the waning days of a celebrity thief. The director and screenwriter’s subjects have come from all over the place, but he often circles the same goal: reexamining myths and legends and imagining what their aftermath might be. The Green Knight isn’t David Lowery’s first dip into mythical realms. How The Green Knight twists the Arthurian legend into something different Understanding some key places where the film deviates from the poem helps make sense of The Green Knight’s loftier goals - and its weirder mysteries. So while you couldn’t call The Green Knight a “faithful” adaptation of the poem, it might be a more faithful adaptation of the bigger legend around Gawain’s adventure than a line-by-line recreation ever could have been. Director David Lowery took a story that many people struggled their way through in high school English, cast Patel as its uneasy hero, and used it to examine how myths get made. Starring Dev Patel, The Green Knight is a swashbuckling tale of adventure, to be sure - but it feels dragged out of the mists of time, uncanny spirits and a touch of the rude and bawdy still clinging to the edges. There’s no effort to modernize the story, no attempt to make it easily legible to the audience. The film is a curious and gloriously risky effort. In its opening titles, in cheeky medieval lettering, The Green Knight proclaims itself “A filmed adaptation of the chivalric romance by Anonymous.” That romance is commonly known as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, one of the most famous and important works of English literature, a 14th-century Arthurian tale penned in Middle English that’s inspired centuries of study, contemplation, and scholarly bickering.
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