The Green Knight is a retelling of the 14th century chivalric romance “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” by  an unknown author. 

Gawain (Dev Patel) is the nephew of King Arthur (Sean Harris) and Queen Guinevere (Kate Dickie). His mother is the witch Morgan La Fay (Sarita Choudhary). He longs to be a Knight of the realm and so when he is asked one Christmas to sit alongside his uncle and aunt during the day’s celebrations he is incredibly proud. 

Arthur asks Gawain to recount a story just before The Green Knight (Ralph Ineson) enters. The Green Knight wants to play a ‘Christmas Game’. Any Knight brave enough to inflict a blow upon him can keep his magnificent axe but in precisely one year they must travel to the Green Chapel where he lives and have the exact same blow inflicted upon them. Despite the warning Gawain takes up the opportunity to impress and in one clean strike beheads the Green Knight, who promptly picks up his head and states that he will see Gawain in one year. 

Gawain’s journey will take in a scavenger on a battlefield (Barry Keoghan), a spirit in search of something important to her (Erin Kellyman), a noble with an exchange to offer (Joel Edgerton), giants and a talking fox. 

This journey is an odyssey that feels like a fever dream. It is full of glorious visuals and awe and wonder. Dev Patel’s Gawain is an enigmatic lead who does a large amount of his storytelling via facial expressions and movement. 

To be clear this is not an Arthurian legend action movie. This is about myths and legends and how stories are embellished in the telling of them. The themes are about chivalry and honour, promises and bargains struck and of course death. But those stories and the way they are told are open to interpretation. Whether Gawain is on this journey at all is as up for debate as how literally the story being told should be interpreted. 

I loved this film. Writer/director David Lowery has previously impressed with Ain’t Them Bodies Saints and The Old Man & The Gun but this is to date his best film. As with his other films this is about slow and steady meditation on the theme of the film and building an atmosphere to luxuriate in. 

It certainly will not be for all, my wife despised it and asked why I loved films about “losers on journeys where nothing happens”. This because another of my favourite movies is Inside Llewyn Davis. Whichever camp you fall in you will know fairly quickly.