The Seagull

For one reason or another Humanitarian writer Dr, Anton Chekov's classic tale is once again brought to the screen with American glamour and Chekov's analytical musings. Bronx born Saoirse Ronan (Brooklyn '15) turns in yet another stellar performance as the star-struck starlet, falling for an older, popular but ultimately shallow writer and following him into obscurity. Billy Howle (Dunkirk '17) gets a chance to equal her as the youthful playwright who loves and mentors her - hoping she will bring the necessary youthful angst to his yet to be appreciated plays. Annette Bening is fine as his devoted but superficially taunting mother.

As with Sidney Lumet's co-production from the late 60s, Michael Meyer's new version brings Chekov's characters to life within a pleasing screen adaption - offering gorgeous locations, sumptuous cinematography, costumes, performances and music. It's good to know that modern Hollywood remains happy to remake classics for those audiences searching for rich dialogue and characterisations. Most won't be disappointed with this treatment, although it's never going to be possible to please some purists or the non-thinking action buffs and at 98mins, it doesn't outstay its welcome Thoughtful brain food.

"The Seagull" (2018 release; 98 min.) is the latest big screen adaptation of the Anton Chekhov theater play. As the movie opens, we are at "The Imperial Theater, Moscow, 1904", where an aging stage actress is saying her goodbyes left and right. The action then shifts to the dacha (country estate), where the actress' ailing brother is anxiously awaiting her arrival. Meanwhile the actress' son Konstantin is preparing to stage his latest play. He is assisted by a lovely young lady, and the two seem happily in love... At this point we're less than 10 min. into the movie but to tell you more of the plot would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out.

Couple of comments: this is the latest film from director Michael Mayer, who is best known for his work on Broadway. Here he tackles what should be a natural for him: bringing a stage play onto the big screen. "The Seagull" has been made into a movie before (and a number of times at that), but I must admit that this is the first movie adaptation I have seen. All the elements are seemingly in place, none more so that a terrific ensemble cast led by Annette Bening, who seemingly only gets better as she ages, but also Saoirse Ronan, Elisabeth Moss, Brian Dennehy, and Billy Howle, just to name those. And it's certainly not the acting talent that is lacking. Bening and Ronan are simply terrific. (As an aside, Ronan and Howle are co-starring as a couple in not one but two movies currently playing at my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati: besides the Seagull, they also star in "On Chesil Beach". What are the odds of that?) Yet despite all this, "The Seagull" is simply not a great, or even good, movie. We watch these character but have no emotional investment in them. When Konstantin has yet another outburst (almost like a five year old's tantrum), we just wonder--why? When romantic relationships may or may not develop, we wonder where the spark is for that. It' a darn shame, and frankly I was relieved when the movie's end titles started rolling, as I had had more than my fill of this.

"The Seagull" was filmed exactly 3 years ago (and one can notice it when you compare Ronan in this and in "On Chesil Bech", filmed 1 1/2 yrs. after this). Why has this been sitting on the shelf for so long? One can only wonder... The movie opened this weekend at my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati, and based purely on the strong ensemble cast, I decided to check it out. The Friday early evening screening where I saw this at was attended okay but not great (about 10 people). Frankly I haven't heard single buzz about this movie, and I can't see this playing long in the theater. If you have an interest in big screen play adaptations, or are a fan of anyong in the ensemble cast, I'd suggest you check this out, be it in the theater (while you still can), on VOD, or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray, and draw your own conclusion.

I thought of that line from Sunset Boulevard several times this afternoon as I sat, the only person in the theater for a 2:50 matinee, watching this *Seagull*. Not that the script, based on Chekhov's play of the same name, was negligible. To the contrary. It was well delivered by a cast who, for the most part, knew how to do so with telling effect.

But what struck me, over and over, were all the close-ups of the faces. Wonderful faces, characterful faces, belonging to actors young and older who never knew the silent screen era and yet know how to act just with their faces. Faces often perfectly lit, so that we saw the fresh beauty of the young - Saoirse Ronan, as Nina, out on the lake with Boris Trigorin and elsewhere in the early parts of the movie - and the cruel wrinkles and crowsfeet of those to whom time has not always been kind (Annette Bening, as the aging actress Irina, who delivered her dialogue wonderfully, but did so much more with her face alone when she considered, at the odd moment, that she might in fact no longer look appealing to her younger lover, Trigorin). If you like to watch actors act with their faces, as Norma Desmond and her generation knew how to do, you will find this movie a feast for the eyes.

But it is also beautifully filmed. The exteriors were evidently shot up in northern New York State, and they are like landscape paintings. The interiors, with period costumes, are wonderfully shot as well.

But it is the performances that you will remember. In addition to those already mentioned, Brian Dennehy, now 80 years old, is winning as the aging Sorin. Billy Howle does a fine job with the young playwright Konstantin, so convinced that he sees a new way to do theater and yet so very wrong. I was less captivated by the Doctor and Boris Trigorin. Elisabeth Moss had a difficult assignment, because Masha is such an unsympathetic character, particularly self-centered in a story about self-centered people.

Another thing that struck me repeatedly as I watched this movie was how cruel most of the characters are to each other, in their own very decorous ways, mostly because they are so wrapped up in themselves that they do not consider those around them. Well before Antonin Artaud and Jean Genet, *The Seagull* is definitely an example of the theater of cruelty.

Because this was released in the summer, it will, I suppose, be forgotten by Oscar time. More's the pity. There is a lot of very good work here, in the acting, the lighting, the cinematography and the direction. This is definitely a movie that could be savored more than once.

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I subsequently reread the play, in Laurence Senelick's 2006 translation. I was surprised to see how much of the script is taken verbatim from that. The person who did the fine screen adaptation removed references to things that contemporary audiences would not know, shifted locales for certain episodes to produce the sort of visual variety you can't have in a play but need in a modern movie, and trimmed back certain passages so that subsequent events, such as Nina's appearance at the estate near the end of the movie, come as more of a surprise. Other than that, this movie is a remarkably faithful transfer to the screen of Chehkov's play.

I wish I could have taken a course on Russian Playwrights when I was in college, that way I could have some insight into Chekhov's psyche. Absent that, I will do my best with "The Seagull", one of Chekhov's most famous plays. As I said in the heading, it is about relationships, and peculiar in that everyone involved loves someone else. Without going into dizzying detail, this labyrinthine nature of the plot requires concentration, in the absence of a scorecard.

The overall mood of the play is gloom and despair, as though love casts a pall over the proceedings. It is 1904, at a Russian mountain resort. Without going into painful detail (just read the website's storyline), there are at least four unhappy couples with their hearts in pain, and the main star is Annette Bening, who gives a terrific performance as an aging actress trying to stay young. Elisabeth Moss is a name I am unfamiliar with but she was excellent as a woman desperately in love with Bening's son (Billy Howle, out of his element here), who is in love with Saoirse Ronan. I'll stop here before it becomes confusing.

All in all, the film is handsomely mounted and, as far as I can tell, faithful to the material. I wish I could have generated more feeling for the principals involved, but I grew restless waiting for an impactful scene.

This film tells the story of an entangled web of loving feelings in an estate in 19th Century Russia.

I really like the two leading actresses, but they still are unable to save the film from being incredibly slow and dull. I really wanted to like it, but I was bored out of my mind.