After a mere six months, we finally got around to watching the Hopkins version of "King Lear". It was an impressive piece in many ways - the modern day setting was well handled, Anthony Hopkins was great in the title role, and the rest of the cast was packed with Names.
But...
The big problem with it came at the end - it was evident that they'd cut an awful lot from the play in order to fit in the two-hour time slot, and this meant that they seemed to get to a point where they'd just run out of story, didn't quite have a resolution... so everyone just died off screen. And then it ended.
That's a real shame, since it really felt like it needed another half-hour or so to breathe just a bit longer, and maybe actually show how these things came about. As it was, it felt like a lesser version of "Hamlet" or "Romeo and Juliet" - everyone dies, there's some closing words from the last man standing, and we're done.
I guess I'll now have to go a read the actual text, to see just how far it differs...
No comments:
Post a Comment