Review: ‘Tragedy Of MacBeth' A Worthy Adaptation That Avoids Old Superstition

By Megan Bianco, Times of San Diego

January 23, 2022

“By the pricking of my thumb, something wicked this way comes.” — Second Witch, Act 4, Scene 1

For all the advances in high-tech special effects, 2021 was apparently the year of black-and-white cinematography and 1:33 aspect ratios. Joel Coen’s new take on William Shakespeare’s classic play, The Tragedy of MacBeth, makes plenty of glorious use of both.

MacBeth was known as “The Scottish Play” for centuries because of an infamous superstition that speaking the play’s title would cause bad luck. We’ve long moved past this spooky belief, but I’ve often wondered if it’s one reason why we’ve rarely had screen adaptations of the story compared to the many for Romeo & Juliet or Hamlet.

Coen, here for the first time without his brother and filmmaking partner Ethan, brings his vision to this classic with an eerie, fantasy-like setting to tap off the end of the past year.

In 1580s Scotland, Lord MacBeth (Denzel Washington) is visited by three witches (all portrayed by Kathryn Hunter) who claim he is destined to be the king of the country. More than convinced and now determined to make this fate an instant reality, MacBeth secretly visits the current king (Brendan Gleeson) to assassinate him while he is sleeping.

MacBeth’s wife (Frances McDormand) becomes increasingly distressed over her husband’s crime, while others around the couple, such as Prince Malcolm (Harry Melling), and thanes MacDuff (Corey Hawkins) and Ross (Alex Hassell), become suspicious and vengeful.

Ralph Ineson and Coen favorite Stephen Root also make appearances in this recent interpretation of MacBeth. Because Shakespeare is so iconic, so old and so recognized, this is one of the instances where it doesn’t seem to matter that American and English actors are using their real accents to play Scottish characters.

While everyone knows Washington as a global movie star, the actor is actually classically trained and already familiar with the theatrical material. Here we see him revisit The Bard on screen for the first time since Kenneth Branagh’s Much Ado About Nothing (1993), this time with a dramatic tragedy rather than a romantic comedy, to much delight and versatility.

McDormand is great as usual, and Melling is proving to have quite a bit of potential since his stint in the Harry Potter franchise (2001-2011).

Coen now joins Peter Farrelly and Nancy Wilson as one of the more recent celebrities to take a break from their sibling artistic partner with high-quality results. While not as gruesome as Roman Polanski’s MacBeth (1971) or as quirky as Billy Morrissette’s modernized Scotland, PA (2001), Coen certainly knows how to set a tone for a film.

There’s an appropriate uneasiness lurking throughout the feature while the respected filmmaker’s style and signature cues can be subtly noticed at the same time.

For fans of either Shakespeare or the Coen brothers, The Tragedy of MacBeth would be an interesting way to begin your 2022 movie viewing.

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