A Review of ‘The Green Knight,’ A Perfect Christmas Film

adapted from a Letterboxd review

The Green Knight (2021) directed by David Lowery took me completely by surprise.

It had been on my list of “movies to see” since it was released, but it never seemed like something that I would be that taken with. I’ve never been particularly interested in Arthurian tales, and I know virtually nothing about the filmmaker. However, the people said it was good, and I trusted the people.

I had checked it out from the library and held onto it for weeks. I just wasn’t getting around to it and never seemed like the right time. I kept it for so long that I currently owe my public library $0.80 in overdue fines.

When I finally did watch it, with my mom who has a deep knowledge of Arthurian tales, I was absolutely gobsmacked.

The Green Knight is an adaptation of the chivalric romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which tells the story of one of King Arthur’s knights who accepts a challenge from a mysterious figure named the Green Knight. The rules of the challenge are that Gawain is free to strike the Green Knight in any way, but the same blow will be returned in a year. Gawain strikes a blow that beheads the knight, believing to have killed him, but the Green Knight picks his head off the ground and tells Gawain to find him in a year at the Green Chapel.

In the original story, what follows is Gawain being tested for his courage and chivalry, and in the end, when the blow is struck, it barely grazes his neck and he learns that this has all been a part of a scheme by Morgan le Fay (Arthur’s sister) to make Gwenivere so frightened that she dies.

In this film, every character from the original fable but Gawain and the Green Knight is nameless, and it tells the story of a cowardly and self-centered man who continues to fail at taking initiative in his own life.

This is a film that I would love to unwrap for hours on end, going into each avenue that you could explore. It is interesting and a little weird, and full of a lot of heart.

This is my favorite type of adaptation that takes the source material and reads within the lines. Arthurian tales have been transformed over and over and over again. Different individuals have donated their interpretations to the characters over hundreds of years, which have cast Sir Gawain from respectfully chivalrous to downright villainous. However, traditionally, he is known to be courteous and humble. In the original verse, Gawain is a pawn within a game played by Morgan le Fay (my partial namesake), and none of his actions truly could have changed the outcome. He has a lack of agency imposed by the circumstances he falls into. I love that within this adaptation, his lack of agency is of his own design and is precisely why he continues following the wrong path.

He has every opportunity to be courageous in a genuine way: taking responsibility for his actions, accepting the consequences, and doing what is right. Sometimes he shows bravery. Sometimes he shows cowardice. He spends much of his quest throughout the film questioning his role, and his responsibility, rather than simply acting on what he knows to be good and just.

He is being pushed directly by all of the people in his life to make the right decision. Essel puts the words into his mouth that he should say to her. His mother (implied to be Morgan le Fay) ambiguously creates the entire test to push him into action. 

The ending is especially ambiguous, and it is interesting to think about what each alternate ending could lend to the overall meaning of the story. If he dies, it tells that prolonged inaction means you are stuck with the consequences you’ve created for yourself. If, like in the original verse, Gawain is struck by the axe and it barely scratches him, it tells that it’s never too late to change and grow as a person. By not determining Gawain’s end, the viewer is able to project their own feelings and thoughts onto it to make it mean something special precisely to them.

The way the characters throughout all have their moments of treating Gawain with that same tenderness as his mother (when they all touch their hands to his face in the way his mother does), it makes you question how the story fits together. Was she everyone? Is there a force beyond her driving all of this? Is his lack of agency justified in a world where so much actively urges you to give up?

This can be taken as a fable warning against selfishness and pride. It tells of a struggle between man and earth. A mother is reckoning with her cowardly and egocentric kid. I just really loved this. I want to read it like it's a primary document and I'm a high schooler taking AP History.

The writing is what makes it so good and truly beautiful. It's lyrical, and it reminds me why filmmaking is an art form.

However, I have two very minor issues with this movie: 1) some of the VFX looks bad and 2) the titling is wrong. 

The first one is self-explanatory. It happens. Sometimes the CGI fox is just going to look like a CGI fox.

My second gripe became compounded when I watched the featurette regarding the title cards. All of the titling that was hard to read (because of poor contrast) was there because after the film was completed and delayed because of the pandemic, the director and titler (?) decided they should go weird and funky with it. They wanted to get creative and out of the box with the ways they utilized title cards. That's why there are like 15 different fonts throughout this.

For some reason, this bothers me to no end. On my first watch, I didn't notice the titling (until it became difficult to read), because the movie was so well written that it was just doing the job of the titling. They literally tell us when there's a time shift, but the movie was already organized to do that! There's that fantastic puppet show that tells us a year has passed!

They said it was like chapter headings, which I think can be very effective, but they just didn't work for me here. They weren't adding to the narrative in a way, or framing it in a new light. Maybe I wouldn't mind them if they were all the same font and had normal contrast (see The Exchange of Winnings), but I just didn't like to hear that the addition was less of an artistic move and more one of those ones you make when you're given too much time with a project and you start adding things.

I truly loved this movie, and it felt inspiring. The scenery was gorgeous, the lighting was positively inspired, and the detailed costuming had me wanting to pause every frame. And I will be watching this again and continuing to think about it because I'm not sure it is going to leave my brain any time soon.

I call The Green Knight a Christmas film, because it takes place during December, with Christmas Day being an important date Gawain is trudging towards. It’s supposed to be a season of merriment and rest, however, his impetuousness has caused him to wander and agonize over his impending doom.

It’s a Christmas film in the way that Die Hard is, as it really just takes place around Christmas. There’s no reindeer, or big decorated trees, or Holiday celebrations, and it is not the coziest of films when Gawain is having a mushroom-spurred trip with a fox of giants crossing the valley. However, I do think that it’s a bit more Christmassy than initially meets the eye.

There’s this magical figure of the Green Knight that forces Gawain to reflect and determine if he was really treating his life as he should. If he was being brave and kind and conscious of the world around him. He’s a bit of a Santa figure (forgive me) in that he is this omniscient being that knows whether Gawain is being bad or good, and attempts to create incentive for him to aim to be a better person.

There’s also a talking animal and I’m not sure what gets me into the holiday spirit more than that.

What an absolutely perfect Christmas film.