Bostn Herald's coverage of Coriolanus at Berlin Film Festival

http://www.bostonherald.com/blogs/entertainment/hollywood_mine/?p=540&srvc=home&position=recent


CORIOLANUS
Burly, fast-paced, violent and surprisingly clear for a complex portrait of a man at war at home and on the battlefield, Ralph Fiennes’ assured, contemporized Coriolanus still works as Shakespeare but also carries quite a kick in its first third as a nonstop action movie.

Fiennes has a wild-eyed intensity and ferocity that I’ve never seen him employ previously; he is scarily convincing as the general who is given the name Coriolanus after his latest victory. Vanessa Redgrave was equally frightening as his mother, a she-wolf who relishes the notion of battle, wounds, killing and sacrifice – all in the name of a cause and that cause is her country. The third fanatic is Coriolanus’ bitter enemy – Tullus Aufidius, played by a bearded Scots accented Gerard Butler. There is an intentional homoerotic quality to their physical fights to the death which Fiennes said he took directly from Shakespeare.

Newcomer Jessica Chastain, a classical looking redhead in the Deborah Kerr mold, is featured as Coriolanus’ wife. This is going to be Chastain’s year. A California native who’s a graduate of Julliard, she has made several films in the past four years – and four or maybe five of them will all be out this year. Her film debut as the title character in Al Pacino’s Salome could premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May alongside Terence Malick’s Tree of Life where she plays Brad Pitt’s wife. August brings two more Chastain features: In The Help, she’s among a peerles ensemble (Emma Stone, Dally Bryce Howard, Viola Davis, Cicely Tyson, Sissy Spacek) in the film version of Kathryn Stockett’s bestseller, and then in The Debt she scorches as a young Israeli Mossad agent who assassinates and tortures a notorious Nazi after the war and then becomes Helen Mirren when the flim jumps ahead 30 years.

John Logan who wrote Gladiator, Sweeney Todd and Aviator, among many others, as well as last year’s Tony winning Best Play Red, adapted Shakespeare’s rarely seen tragedy for Fiennes. Coriolanus is in competition; the awards, including the Golden Bear for Best Picture, are voted on by a jury headed by Isabella Rossellini and presented Saturday night