Coriolanus Review

• 28th May 2012

Ralph Fiennes’ masterful reworking of Coriolanus as a modern tragedy moves the action to the Balkans. The setting is a fictional version of Rome, and Fiennes deftly side-steps his small budget to use real news footage and battle-hardened looking locals as extras. The location still looks tragically scarred, although Serbia’s parliament buildings provide the claustrophobic grandeur needed for the Senate scenes.

On many levels, this version of Coriolanus is all the proof needed that Shakespeare is the playwright for all eras. As has been noted elsewhere, the scenes in which a starving, politicised populace rail against an indifferent ruling elite foreshadowed the Occupy movement. The depiction of a once-mighty power collapsing under the weight of strife at home and abroad feels uncomfortably like documentary, and even Coriolanus himself — a stalwart defender of Rome (if not its citizens) who has his suffering in service of his country both mocked and rejected, driving him into the service of Rome’s sworn enemy — may as well be the distant forebear of Homeland’s Sgt. Brody. 

Fiennes proves himself to be a surprisingly adept director of action scenes, and it’s proof of just how good he is with the “warm props” that he even manages to wring a decent performance out of Gerard Butler as Coriolanus’ sworn enemy and soul mate Tullus Aufidius. In a dark visual gag the Bard would surely have approved of, Aufidius is first introduced sharpening his dagger as he watches a news report about Coriolanus’ latest victory. This hint that Aufidius and Coriolanus have been admiring each other from afar is brought to a head (fnar) in their first and last scenes together.

Vanessa Redgrave, as the terrifying Volumnia, and Brian Cox as poor, doomed Meninius are both reliably brilliant and Channel 4 newsman Jon Snow makes for a wonderful commentator on the main action. Jessica Chastain, as Virgilia, is the only bum note. She’s a wonderful actor, but is too easily outshone by the luminaries in the core cast. Her youth and beauty almost work against her — it would have been interesting to see a slightly older actor, able to depict a character worn down by years of being bashed against the rocks of Volumnia and Coriolanus’ relationship, in her stead. It’s all too easy to imagine Chastain’s girlish Virgilia eventually shrugging off her marriage Coriolanus as a youthful folly. This is thrown into stark relief by Dragan Micanovic, who as the heartbroken Titus Lartius returning from a brutal rejection from the man he has fought alongside for years, takes one short, but significant, scene and turns it into a moment of lump-in-the-throat perfection.

The niggle of Chastain’s casting aside, this is as near to flawless as “modernised” takes on Shakespeare get.

Extras include an audio commentary from director/star Fiennes and a “making of” featurette.

Clare Moody