The Critic review: Ian McKellen is too good for this overstuffed theatre critic drama

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse Loughrey Get our The Life Cinematic email for free Get our The Life Cinematic email for free SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Ian McKellen luxuriates in the role of Jimmy Erskine, longtime theatre critic at The London Chronicle, whose position is threatened after the death of his former editor and mentor, who’s been replaced by his more conservative son, David Brooke. It’s a darkly comic premise, making use of the old cinematic conceit of the critic as some kind of egotist puppet master, with little regard for mere mortal laws and moralities. When Nina’s mother, Annabel, tries to strike up a casual conversation with Jimmy, under the guise of an average theatregoer, he storms up to the manager and cries, “I must be protected from the general public!” It’s a juicy part for McKellen, exactly the kind of legendary thespian who makes a barb about Nina seemingly not knowing how to walk sound like a three-course meal. Ian McKellen in the dreary slog ‘The Critic’ The rest is plain melodrama, amped up by the way cinematographer David Higgs turns London into a fog-choked proscenium, never quite real in its existence.