The Green Knight

 I ventured out to my local cineplex to see The Green Knight because I had heard about it on Pop Culture Happy Hour, and they said it was a gorgeous film and worth seeing. I ended up getting to the theater a half hour before showtime because I didn't check that day's listings, so I sat in the theater eating popcorn until the ads and previews started. There was not a single preview for a movie I wanted to see and most of them were disgusting in one way or another. The movie itself held my attention but left me feeling disappointed. The costumes were great. Some of the set pieces were interesting. But there was no through line that held my interest. The christian allegory of the source material was absent, so that took away motivation for Gawain and nothing was there to replace it. He's a happy-go-lucky jerk in the beginning and ends up being a sad jerk at the end. At no point do we see him engaged in any kind of moral struggle. The business with his own mother and the witches feels completely disconnected from the rest of the goings on, although it seems as if it's supposed to be central to the film. He staggers along between point A and point B, and has a series of encounters but the reason why he's persisting in going to meet his possible doom is not about honor, as he says at one point. He fails all the tests he meets along the way. The most interesting character (until it started talking) was the fox that joins him on his journey half-way through. The most despicable action comes after he has fled from his fate, when he steals his baby from its mother when he becomes the king's heir.  A lot of the disconnect for me was in the pacing. In other words, lots of style but short on story-telling, whether traditional or otherwise. I could see what seemed to be the connections but I just didn't care. There were several important moments where the dialogue sound was so muddy I could not understand what the characters were saying. I didn't recognize that Alicia Vikander was playing both his lover at the beginning and The Lady in the castle toward the end. I was just confused by why they looked alike. Two many questions are raised that are answered by "we never find out for sure." Too long at two hours. The entire sequence when he has become the king feels like an afterthought and the ending was just plain stupid. People over on letterboxd are all thrilled about it but it just made me tired. Oh, well.