SeagullMovie

The Seagull Detailed Movie Rating

Oblivious to the adoration of Masha (Elisabeth Moss), budding Russian author Konstantin (Billy Howle) strives to impress his actress mother Irina (Annette Bening) and aspiring actress Nina (Saoirse Ronan). But they're obsessed with fashionable writer Trigorin (Corey Stoll), who wrily regards the family's travails as material for his next masterpiece.

Anton Chekhov has an irresistible allure for filmmakers. Over 475 adaptations of his work have been attempted since the first in 1911, with the short stories often translating more successfully than the plays. Yet doughty souls keep revisiting the stage works with greater reverence than innovation. More at home in the theatre than the cinema — after enjoying mixed fortunes with A Home At The End Of The World (2004) and Flicka (2006) — Michael Mayer stands a better chance than most of creating a memorable screen Chekhov. But, in his eagerness to inject some dramatic pace and escape the confines of the proscenium, he has produced a fussy bowdlerisation that fritters away the efforts of an exceptional ensemble.

Many purists will bridle at the way in which screenwriter Stephen Karam has chopped and changed the text. But he unearths the vein of dark humour that underlies the melodramatic muddles and there are moments when this feels like the Chekhov 123Movies that Woody Allen never got round to making. As the ageing diva envious of the youth and beauty of her rival, Annette Bening particularly relishes the conceited quips that suggest Irina is always performing, while Elisabeth Moss

similarly invests Masha's self-pitying ennui with a parodic pathos. Moreover, Saoirse Ronan switches effortlessly from the inept ingenue hamming up the besotted Konstantin’s (Billy Howle) garishly pretentious shadow play to the crushed spirit who returns to the remote country estate after having her life ruined by the smugly opportunistic Boris (Corey Stoll).

Yet, while the production values are as impeccable as the performances, the swooping intensity of Matthew J. Lloyd's skittish camerawork and the surfeit of overly emotive close-ups distracts from Chekhov's timeless insights into human nature and the gulf between substantial art and cheap imitations. Thus, while it knowingly draws parallels between life and drama, this is filmed theatre, not cinema.