It is Christmas time at Camelot, and King Arthur (Sean Harris) has called together his Knights of the Round Table for an evening of celebration, when there comes a knock on the doors of the hall.  Upon a giant steed, dwarfed only by the size of its rider, enters The Green Knight (Ralph Ineson) with his Christmas Game: he seeks a knight brave enough and skilled enough to land a blow, but in one year’s time he is to return to The Green Chapel so that he may deliver the same blow to Arthur’s knight.  Looking to cement his place is the annals of myth and legend, Sir Gawain (Dev Patel) steps forward and boldly beheads The Green Knight. 

In his second film released with A24, director David Lowery is very clearly in control of absolutely every frame of the 130-minute run time.  Not only does his skill and artistry shine through, but so does his care for the centuries-old poem.  The camera moves, especially when in the wilderness, with a flowing, lyrical quality reminiscent of reading metered text.   

His knack at utilization of location and being able to capture the sweeping vistas of this medieval fantastic world led to many breathtaking moments in the film.  One of the best examples would be in the “Interlude” chapter which finds Gawain traversing through various lush landscapes.  The streams give way to caves, gives way to clifftops in a dreamlike moment of beautiful fantasy.  Of note, not only here but throughout the film, is Dev Patel’s remarkable physical presence.  As the lion’s share of the runtime is Gawain’s solo expedition through the wilderness, there is not a lot of dialogue for him to build a performance, but Patel manages never to become lost in the scenery.  

Opposite Patel, though only for a scant few minutes, is the titular Green Knight.  Clad in forested armor, the character design of this foe is everything you could ask for.  Not only is he huge in stature, but his bellowing voice rumbles through the auditorium instilling fear into us as an audience.  There is something so captivating about the way he speaks in his labored and deliberate way, but what makes The Green Knight truly terrifying is the juxtaposition of his introduction with that of the royal King Arthur’s.  Despite the truly wonderful and subtle performance by Harris, next to The Green Knight, all we see is his fragile mortality which is magnified even more so by the supernatural elements that begin to show themselves and shape the world of The Green Knight.   

While this is a very strong way to start the film, it is the first occurrence of style over substance, a blight which will return to plague Lowery’s script time and time again.  The film is steeped in rich imagery that it feels almost overwhelming as we scramble to take it all in before the camera cuts away, but for all that is setup, very little actually pays off later in the narrative.  To his credit, Lowery and his crew allow us to see everything.  We are never straining our eyes make out the faces of who is talking or what is happening, even in the dank castles and dark forests.    

It is very apparent that Lowery is fluent in the visual language of film, which makes the shortcomings of his script that much more apparent.  Compared to the equally meditative and abstractly executed A Ghost Story (2017) the major difference is that A Ghost Story returns from its philosophical tangents to finish the narrative.  While there is plenty left that is open for interpretation, all the setups had been fulfilled.  

The Green Knight, does not follow that same path, though this can be attributed more so due to a weakness of character development on behalf of Sir Gawain. There is no arc that Gawain travels except for the plot requirement that he returns to The Green Chapel to receive what is due to him. The lessons he is setup to learn while on his journey – a typical trapping of medieval mortality tales – are never heeded and never come back into play.  He is the same person when he arrives at the overgrown chapel at the end of his six-day trek as he was when he left the town.  Without this growth as a character that is so vital to a successful hero’s journey coupled with the symbolism that keeps presenting itself but never pays off, it results in a wholly dissatisfying and empty ending for an otherwise expertly crafted film.  

What makes the film so frustrating is that you can’t help but to see the symbolism at work just below the surface of the production design, but the lack of character development never allows it to take root and blossom.  There are so many choices that are made that never return to be answered because the film is so much more preoccupied with how it looks – and maybe it was a directorial choice to keep the film as dream-like as possible – but to have beautiful imagery setups that lead nowhere makes the film feel a little half-baked by the conclusion of The Green Knight’s game.  Even when studying the ambiguous ending from both sides of the aisle, the fact remains that the actual narrative surrounding our lead character is much weaker than the symbolism and mysticism that shapes his word. 

Despite all of this, The Green Knight is a very enjoyable film even with its empty messaging.   That being said, I must respect Lowery, who continues to be unabashedly committed to bringing his vision to screen and the technical ability that is on display here makes The Green Knight easily one of the most beautiful films in recent memory.  I do look forward to revisiting the film in the future, and maybe much of the symbolism that was lost on me during my initial viewing can be attributed to my ignorance of the source text, but I am and always will be a firm believer that the existence of a source material does not allow for lazy storytelling on behalf of the filmmaker.