Movie Review: The Seagull

The Seagull ** ½ / *****

Directed by: Michael Mayer.

Written by: Stephen Karam based on the play by Anton Chekhov.

Starring: Annette Bening (Irina), Saoirse Ronan (Nina), Corey Stoll (Boris Trigorin), Elisabeth Moss (Masha), Brian Dennehy (Sorin), Michael Zegen (Mikhail), Mare Winningham (Polina), Jon Tenney (Doctor Dorn), Glenn Fleshler (Shamrayev), Billy Howle (Konstantin), Ben Thompson (Yakov), Barbara Tirrell (Olga the cook), Paul Krisikos (Sasha), Thomas Hettrick (Ivan). 

 

I have not seen Anton Chekov’s The Seagull done on stage – but I imagine it works well there. After all, it has been performed often over the last 120 years, and if it isn’t Chekov’s defining work, it’s close to it. The play was innovative at its time – and perhaps that’s the problem with this new movie adaption of the play. Whatever lessons Chekov had to teach about drama, writing, subtext, comedy, etc. have all well been absorbed by now – meaning that a new version of the standard now plays almost as clichéd as what Chekov was originally rebelling against. There’s also the fact that the movie version runs just over 90 minutes for what is a four act play (the previous film version was two hours and twenty minutes), so you feel like you’re getting the Clift notes version of a class. There are some fine performances on display here to be sure – but I kept wondering what the point of this new version was, and I don’t think it ever really answers that question. It’s a quick and easy watch – sometimes quite entertaining – but ultimately it rings hollow.

 

The plot is well-known to all (even me, somehow). Irina (Annette Bening) is an again, vain actress who comes to her brothers, Sorin (Brian Dennehy) country estate, because he fears he is dying, for a visit. She brings along with her Boris Trigorin (Corey Stoll), her younger lover, who is a celebrated writer. Her own son, Konstantin (Billy Howle) is also a writer, not celebrated anywhere, who is living with his uncle. He is in love with Nina (Saorise Ronan), a local girl, who wants to be on the stage, who quickly falls in love with Boris. Masha (Elizabeth Moss) is a brooding, darkly comic drunk in love with Konstantin, who is cruel to the teacher, Mikhail (Michael Zegen), who is in love with her. There are others there – played by actors as good as Mare Winningham and Jon Tenney, although I feel their roles may be cut so much I barely know why they’re there.

 

The plot is undeniably melodramatic – but it’s also quite funny throughout, taking shots in all different directions – from the youthful pretensions of Konstantin and Nina, to the casual, thoughtless cruelty of people like Irina and Boris, who destroy others, and then just keep on their merry way. It is often quite enjoyable to watch most of these actors in these roles – Annette Bening in particular seems to be at the perfect age and temperament to play Irina, and she’s quite good here. Stoll is okay as Boris, but I don’t think he is quite able to keep up with Bening, nor able to really show how awful his character really is. I think Elisabeth Moss could probably make a great Masha – but her role in the film feels like an add-on – I cannot help but wonder if her best scenes are on the cutting room floor. The great Saorise Ronan is okay as Nina – but perhaps it’s because she is often so good playing characters who are smart, that I didn’t quite buy the naïve, innocent act she puts on here. As in this year On Chesil Beach, I wasn’t a huge fan of Billy Howle either – which doesn’t bode well for the movie considering what I key role it is.

 

It doesn’t surprise me that director Michael Mayer has been be a theater director his whole career. I did quite like the one other film of his I have seen – 2004’s A Home at the End of the World, with Colin Farrell. Here, though, it feels like he’d rather be directing this same material on the stage – and perhaps because of the style of the dialogue, many of the actors feel like they are given theatrical performances as well. Perhaps they’d all be great on stage together, with basically the same material (although, with fewer cuts). But on screen, it all just kind of falls flat.