---
title: The Tragedy of Macbeth
type: Movie
date: 2022-01-19
rating: 9
year: 2021
director: Joel Coen
status: Finished
image: the-tragedy-of-macbeth.jpg
tags:
  - movie
colorSortKey: [0, 122, 7]
---
 Boy, I loved this. This was really really really well executed: a moody, bare, opinionated take on what a film adaptation should be.

I can't think of a single quibble! The acting was uniformly delightful (Denzel struggled in the first two acts, I think, and then really got going as Macbeth descended further and further) and I now have a newfound respect for Alex Hassell who was a nadir amongst nadirs in [[Cowboy Bebop (2021)]]. The set design and cinematography was by far my favorite piece of the entire thing (just the right number of Dutch angles!) and I appreciated the light touch of whimsy when it came to choose who should portray the Third Murderer.

The only thing keeping me from giving this a perfect rating is an absence of, uh... this is going to sound cliche, but soul? Like this was a perfect stage adaptation of a play, but it was first and foremost a play. I spent the entire runtime agog at how well it was done, but it never turned into its own thing (which is fine — it never wanted nor tried to!)