V for Vendetta Release Date: March 17, 2006 Starring: Natalie Portman, Hugo Weaving, Stephen Rea, John Hurt Directed by: James McTeigue
GLENN KENNY'S REVIEW (posted 3/15/06)
(This review appeared in the April 2006 issue of Premiere.)
It should not be news to anybody that one of the best perks for storytellers working in genres of fantasy is the license those genres afford. Supernatural or futuristic elements put any given story at a sort of remove, allowing its teller to say things that would be deemed irresponsible, seditious, or even traitorous if they were so stated in a realistic tale. To wit, a picture like Syriana goes to great pains to detail all the ways in which the, shall we say, System is a corrosive, corrupt, destructive lie, and, having made that case, simply ends. V for Vendetta, a compelling, rousing and at times strangely moving entertainment, details the System as a similarly corrosive, corrupt, destructive—with hateful and oppressive thrown into the mix—lie, and then says that said System should be changed via the assassination of its leaders and the explosive toppling of its most cherished symbols.
Which is quite a thing to say, and V for Vendetta, directed by James McTeigue from a script (an adaptation of Alan Moore's graphic novel) by Matrix-makers the Wachowski brothers, who also produced (McTeigue was their assistant director on the Matrix pictures), will no doubt get targeted with a lot of blogosphere and op-ed flak for so saying.
But this is a fantasy—set in a future Britain that bears many resemblances to Orwell's Oceania, with a goodly number of more contemporary inflections drawn from nonfiction knowingly thrown in. (John Hurt digs deep into his stiff and nasty mode as the country's authoritarian leader, and his casting reverberates with pleasing irony given that he played an entirely convincing Winston Smith in the 1984 adaptation of 1984.)
A masked revolutionary (Hugo Weaving)—and it's a hell of a mask, caricaturing 17th-century Brit insurrectionist Guy Fawkes—rescues damsel-in-distress media cog Evey (Natalie Portman, whose transformation from wide-eyed waif into Joan of Arc-like impassioned avenger is an inspired, inspiring performance) on the evening he puts into motion a scheme to overthrow the current government. Evey is thus drawn into his web, and into the sights of government investigators—led by a dogged detective (Stephen Rea) who's having doubts about his superiors. The ensuing machinations and double crosses leading to the entirely satisfying denouement are more than diverting, but they never get so carried away that they detract from the critiques of social injustice that give them their reason for being. (Unlike The Matrix Reloaded and Revolutions, which were overly frenetic CGI-fests with a few half-hearted socio-political-philosophical footnotes appended, Vendetta metes out its exhilarating action set pieces very deliberately.)
But again, this is a fantasy. One of the great things about being a, um, terrorist in a fantasy movie is that you can plot all your bombings and such from the comfort of a cozy-kitchened, home-entertainment-systemed underground lair. How truly, directly, subversive can this, or any other film, really be? The way movies function in the larger culture tends to be more reflective and affective than practically effective in the way most agitprop aspires to. Still, V for Vendetta's strength beyond its substantial movie-movie value is not in how it pitches its ideas, but to whom—a pop audience, an audience the powers that be consider too thoroughly distracted to challenge . . . the powers that be. A good thing to keep in mind as the controversy about this picture whips up.—Glenn Kenny
