The legend of King Arthur has inspired filmmakers from Monty Python to Walt Disney, John Boorman to Antoine Fuqua, but the recent tendency has been to ground it in reality: Joe Cornish’s The Kid Who Would Be King was set on a south London council estate and Guy Ritchie’s take on it had Arthur calling everyone ‘mate’.
It’s refreshing, then, to see writer-director David Lowery (A Ghost Story) lean into the fantastical elements of the anonymous 14th-century poem commonly known as ‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’.
Dev Patel plays Gawain, nephew of King Arthur (Sean Harris), who rashly accepts a challenge from the eponymous enchanted warrior, beheading him and agreeing to receive a similar blow in a year’s time.
As the momentous day approaches, however, Gawain begins to have misgivings – as well he might – and his journey to the Green Knight’s realm takes on an increasingly doom-laden dimension.
A tale told mainly via startling visuals requires an actor with a singularly expressive face, and Patel rises to the challenge.
He strips away knightly courage to reveal the fear lurking behind every so-called ‘hero’.
Lowery wittily interprets the original text, adding a better ending, and only once strays close to Python terrain (when the ever-brilliant Barry Keoghan pops up as a lolloping scavenger).
