Coriolanus

Ralph Fiennes has chosen Shakespeare as his directorial debut and most critics seem to think he has done a good job of it. He has choosen to reset the film in a modern day Balkan state (filmed in Serbia) racked by civil war, complete with street fighting and demonstrations. This has allowed him to transpose Coriolanus' inability to woo the people of Rome into a modern power struggle we have all become used to seeing over the last decades. Cinematographer Barry Ackroyd (fresh from The Hurt Locker) gets great reviews for these modern combat scenes and, looking at the trailers we can see why; but most plaudits are reserved for the acting. Fiennes himself plays Coriolanus, with Gerald Butler playing his enemy-turned-ally Aufidius, whilst Vanessa Redgrave is universally applauded as Volumnia, his mother. We also get another chance to see Jessica Chastain (Tree of Life) as his wife Virgilia.

So our last film of the year is Fiennes' first as a director; we don't get enough Shakespeare locally; let us hope his film and the stellar actors help make up for that.