David Lowery's The Green Knight is a mostly successful interpretation of the chivalric romance. Dev Patel stars as Gawain who accepts the challenge of the Green Knight at a Christmas feast and then must wait a year for a rematch with his nemesis. Lowery has wisely streamlined his epic source material. Long tracking shots convey the questing nature of the narrative.
Patel is more than adequate as Gawain and there are good turns by Erin Kellyman, Ralph Ineson, Joel Edgerton and, especially, Barry Keoghan. Keoghan is the definitive creep of our era much as Oliver Reed was the definitive sadistic brute of the 1960s. Only Alicia Vikander is not up to the challenge of her role. Her character has a long monologue stressing the eternal indomitability of nature, but her reading lacks the sinister force to put it across. Still, this is Lowery's most successful film (though I have not seen his remake of Pete's Dragon). When Gawain throws off the green sash of superstition to choose self-sacrifice, it shows that Lowery has grasped the thematic crux of this work and all Arthurian legend: the struggle between Paganism and Christianity.
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