In his latest movie, TheCritic, Ian McKellen plays a powerful London theater critic who lures a struggling actress into a blackmail scheme with deadly consequences. Gemma Arterton, Mark Strong, and Lesley Manville co-star. We open the film on September 13 at the Laemmle Claremont, Newhall, and Town Center.Director Anand Tucker wrote this about the film:The Critic is an astonishingly contemporary piece of work, speaking directly to our time and condition. Set in the 30’s, a period of similar febrile upheaval and intensity to our present, with old certainties falling away, and the rise of the right and its instinct-based politics triumphing over rationalism and science, it is the story of an outsider trapped in the vice of events bigger than himself. It holds a mirror up to our time now.
As a British outsider myself -- Indian father, German mother, child of Empire -- I connected with Jimmy Erskine’s struggle for survival, for his voice, his identity in the face of monolithic ‘English’ (read white Heterosexual) culture and norms. His story is incredibly dark, surprising and moving.Yet it is a much bigger and more elemental story than just politics. It asks questions of the nature of art and creativity, of ambition and desire. It has at its heart a thrillingly dark Faustian pact, a beautifully interconnected web of relationships that explode as a result of that pact, and ends as a meditation on the entire experience of being human, with all our flaws, our terrible choices and their consequences on display. Above all, it's sublimely written and supremely entertaining.
My aim as Director is to bring Patrick’s script to life in the most immediate and visceral way possible. I want to deliver on the period promise without the period standing in the way, distancing one’s experience. It’s a period look and feel that has to be alive, dirty, real, not glossyand polished and polite.
The camera will turn the world of this London -- from mysterious, dark and dangerous Soho to the elevated privilege of the Country House -- into a searching journey. We will probe and move and explore the faces set against these most British of Landscapes.We will find the Dark Light that shines out of this world to shoot in, unexpected and dazzling. Above all we have a wonderful cast- and their performances are the most important element, their faces the ultimate Landscapes. - ANAND TUCKER
As a British outsider myself -- Indian father, German mother, child of Empire -- I connected with Jimmy Erskine’s struggle for survival, for his voice, his identity in the face of monolithic ‘English’ (read white Heterosexual) culture and norms. His story is incredibly dark, surprising and moving.Yet it is a much bigger and more elemental story than just politics. It asks questions of the nature of art and creativity, of ambition and desire. It has at its heart a thrillingly dark Faustian pact, a beautifully interconnected web of relationships that explode as a result of that pact, and ends as a meditation on the entire experience of being human, with all our flaws, our terrible choices and their consequences on display. Above all, it's sublimely written and supremely entertaining.My aim as Director is to bring Patrick’s script to life in the most immediate and visceral way possible. I want to deliver on the period promise without the period standing in the way, distancing one’s experience. It’s a period look and feel that has to be alive, dirty, real, not glossyand polished and polite.The camera will turn the world of this London -- from mysterious, dark and dangerous Soho to the elevated privilege of the Country House -- into a searching journey. We will probe and move and explore the faces set against these most British of Landscapes.We will find the Dark Light that shines out of this world to shoot in, unexpected and dazzling. Above all we have a wonderful cast- and their performances are the most important element, their faces the ultimate Landscapes. - ANAND TUCKER