The dangers of social climbing

Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard star in "Macbeth." Image courtesy The Weinstein Company.

The very first shot in the new film adaptation of “Macbeth” is an attempt to explain the ensuing wicked deeds of the titular character and his wife. It’s not the sole narrative shift the film takes from the play, but it sets an off-kilter, moderately anachronistic tone for this adaptation that keeps the dialogue while changing the characters’ motivations radically and not to the film’s benefit.

“Macbeth” stars Michael Fassbender as the eponymous Scot, whose bravery and ferocity as a warrior are second only to his loyalty to the king, Duncan (David Thewlis). After stunting an uprising alongside friend Banquo (Paddy Considine), the pair is visited by four witches who tell Fassbender he will become both the thane of Cawdor and the future king of Scotland while Considine will be the father of a line of kings. Fassbender and Considine are confused at first by the seers' fortune, but the fates begin to play their hand when Fassbender receives his promotion moments after the confrontation with the witches.

The coincidence is notable enough to convince Lady Macbeth (a very good Marion Cotillard) of her husband's grander future, and she persuades Fassbender to commit regicide to advance up the ranks. He's hesitant to participate until Thewlis proclaims the meek Malcolm (Jack Reynor) will succeed him on the throne. Once the act most foul is done and Reynor runs away in terror, Fassbender is named king and accomplishes everything he set out to do. The hard part though is keeping the dream, and he worries about the witches' prophecy about Considine's children, as do additional bodements about his downfall from the throne involving a possible heel turn from the good Macduff (Sean Harris).

What happens next is what one expects from a Shakespeare play, with the man’s paranoia serving as the means to his inevitable downfall. The debate over how much control the fates have over a person’s life remain in the film adaptation, along with the era-appropriate dialogue and sense of impending doom that swarms around Macbeth. The film version does take advantage of the medium though, showcasing the oft-beautiful (albeit infrequently used) Scottish/United Kingdom locales and staging large and impressive battle scenes scored with a screams and a heavy soundtrack. Blood flows relentlessly amid the skirmishes, and “Macbeth” doesn't shy away from showing the effects such brutality has on its participants; Fassbender and his fellow soldiers are covered in gashes and mud well after returning home from the war. The dirtiness works as a contrast to Thewlis' Duncan, who is garbed in fine white clothes as his men do the dirty work to protect his stature.

“Macbeth” would be a much more successful film had it limited the changes to the senses, but the desire to explain the plotting and reinterpret the Macbeth clan do far more harm than good. That opening image of the funeral mentioned earlier is proffered as the reason to the madness that eventually conquers Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, but it undermines that all too human sense of greed that drives the couple to murder for social advancement. The lust for power is strong to inspire such levels of evil; implementing a dead child as the justification is a cop out.

So it isn’t greed that drives Macbeth in this case; it’s loss and sorry and a need to atone for a family torn apart by the death of a child. The shift effectively reduces the cunning edge he develops after murdering Duncan; rather, savvy is exchanged for insanity that effectively removes the fault from his stars and shifting it to the fates. Considering the man is goaded into the act by his wife in the first place and Macbeth can pretty much blame the world for his actions and have some justification for it.

And then there’s poor Lady Macbeth, whose emotional complexity is stripped away by a film too eager to enter into pop psychology. Those undercurrents of fratricide that plague her during the planning in the play are gone, and the film opts to link her sudden illness death to an act of barbarity committed by Macbeth against Macduff's wife and children instead of Duncan's death. Macbeth's cruelty toward Macduff's family is revelatory for Lady Macbeth because it puts the monster she created on full display, but attaching it to a traditionally feminine concepts – family and innocence – erodes the strength behind her eventual madness. She transforms from an oak to a willow, with her expedited fall into eternal sleep taming material that’s better served with a little ferocity and bite.

Review: Three and a half out of Five Stars

Click here to see the trailer.

Rating: R

Run time: 113 minutes (One hour and 53 minutes)

Genre: Drama

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Target audience: Lovers of Shakespearean drama and anyone down for a little war Scottish style.

Take the whole family?: “Macbeth” gets pretty bloody at times, but teens reading it for lit classes will be more than fine.

Theater or Netflix?: Wait for Netflix; the visuals are OK but just aren't strong enough to justify the additional expense.

Can you understand what’s being said?: Every now and then. The dialogue remains Shakespeare's, and the lines are delivered with thick accents by those involved, making for a rather tricky listening experience for viewers. Fortunately, the context of the situation remains easy to figure out, so it's easy to follow along even if a few lines fly well above your head.

Watch this as well?: I admittedly have a soft spot for Kenneth Branagh's adaptation of “Much Ado About Nothing.” Emma Thompson is wonderful as always, while Denzel Washington and Michael Keaton seem to have a lot of fun with the material. Plus Keanu Reeves flails at a British accent, which is always fun to watch.