FILM REVIEW: CORIOLANUS

Ralph Fiennes' Adaption Of Shakespeare's Bloodiest Play Is Truly A Film Of The Moment
by Eleanor Careless 

It would be hard to imagine a more germane time to release an adaption of Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, a play whose drama revolves around the volatile divide between the rich, powerful patricians and the starving, mutinous plebeians of ancient Rome. Ralph Fiennes’ directorial debut sets Coriolanus in a war-racked Balkan-like state full of fighting factions and the attendant miseries and privations of war. This is his most powerful and effective directorial decision – otherwise, the Shakespearean text and traditions of classical drama are closely observed.

Within this setting, khaki-clad army generals and besuited politicians wrangle over the question of who is to be appointed consul of Rome in a series of resonant scenes that manage to convey matters of ancient politics with relevance and perspicacity. The proud and revered general Caius Martius (Ralph Fiennes) is the obvious choice for consul, following a string of military successes including the defeat of Rome’s enemy the Volscians in the town of Corioli – for which victory he is honourably dubbed, much to his chagrin, “Coriolanus”. Despite patrician support, Coriolanus fails to ingratiate himself with the plebeian masses, a task he is loath to perform despite the exhortations of his ambitious mother (Vanessa Redgrave). His resulting scornful rage towards the people results in a proclamation of banishment from Rome. A vengeful Coriolanus subsequently allies himself with his greatest enemy, Tullus Aufidius (Gerard Butler), the leader of the Volscians, and descends upon Rome with the Volscian army to enact his revenge. Diplomatic interventions from his close friend Menenius (Brian Cox) cannot move him, but his formidable mother (Redgrave) makes a vehement appeal that eventually reduces the god-like Coriolanus to tears. Rome is saved, but Aufidius, who feels threatened by the influence Coriolanus exerts over his own people, has the once proud general assassinated as a traitor. 

The tensions played out in this film are complex and uncomfortable. Coriolanus, hostile to the starving people, is not a character easily warmed to, but Fiennes’ urgent and uncompromising performance makes for a compelling, tragic figure torn between his patriotism, his integrity, his contempt for the plebs, and his virile mother. Vanessa Redgrave brings a potent blend of driving ambition and staggering maternal strength to the central mother-son relationship upon which the whole plot turns. Redgrave is utterly convincing and disturbingly rapturous over the prospect of bloodshed and glory.   

Despite the power and intensity of the acting, there are some devices which sit uneasily in this adaption – for instance, the slightly glib use of grainy newsflashes to convey developments in the plot which feel like an extended replay of the brilliant opening sequence to Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet (1996), although they do serve to open out the action and keep the story rolling rapidly forward. Technology is used to greater effect elsewhere, for instance when we briefly witness Coriolanus making a video call on his laptop from the Senate to his lieutenant Lartius out on the field – a scene which is more arresting than it sounds. The constant overlap between the frames of family, politics and the military is demonstrated here by a filmic conceit, but elsewhere within the text itself, as when Coriolanus’ mother, in her home, has an ecstatic vision of her son bloodied in battle.

Some later scenes of cultish, drunken jubilance among the Volsces, who have their heads shaved on a golden barber’s chair to mimic their skinheaded idol Coriolanus, also smell of Luhrmann’s giddy punk creation. And there is something disconcerting about the crowd scenes, which feel oddly small and theatrical, as if the film set has been reduced to the dimensions of the stage.  But this is a difficult play, and tremendously long, and Fiennes has made gripping, pithy work of a lesser known but, as it turns out, astonishingly pertinent piece of Shakespeare. “Occupy Rome”, anyone? 

Eleanor Careless is acting staff writer for Topman GENERATION and contributing writer for QUID and The Paper Nautilus