Ian McKellen stars as waspish theatre reviewer in period movie The Critic

Veteran actor Ian McKellen has a lot of fun as the chief drama critic at the Daily Chronicle, a Fleet Street newspaper that leans to the right.

Actor Ian McKellen and Gemma Arterton in the film The Critic.

I have a small fascination with films in which actors play actors. Russell Crowe in The Exorcism is a recent example. Looking to the classics, one that shares themes with the film under review is the 1981 German language film Mephisto, starring Klaus Maria Brandauer.

In the British drama The Critic, Ian McKellen, star of stage and screen, has a lot of fun as the chief drama critic at the Daily Chronicle, a Fleet Street newspaper that leans to the right.

It’s 1934, Jimmy Erskine has been in the job for four decades and is feared by actors, directors and just about everyone else who crosses his path. He dresses well, sneers at his readers and laughs at his own unfunny jokes.

He was on the stage himself in his youth. “Laertes was my pinnacle,’’ he says. That’s a clever inclusion in this film directed by Anand Tucker and written by Patrick Marber. He is not Hamlet but the man who kills the Danish prince.

He continues to swing the poison-tipped sword in his reviews.

His main target is Nina Land (Gemma Arterton, the Bond girl in Quantum of Solace), who acts with “all the grace of a startled mule”.

When a woman chats to Erskine in a theatre bar, he orders the staff to “remove this excess baggage”. He adds, “I must be protected from the general public.” We learn the woman is Nina’s mother, Annabel Land (the ever marvellous Lesley Manville).

Erskine has two weaknesses, one unfair, the other unexpected. He is gay and homosexuality is illegal. He lives with his secretary and lover Tom Turner (Alfred Enoch). When the proprietor of the paper dies, his son Viscount David Brooke (Mark Strong), takes over with plans to disarm the old guard. He warns Erskine to “tone it down” and write with “more beauty, less beast”.

While it’s not named, the play that’s central to this film, and to Mephisto, is Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus from the late 16th century. The drama critic and the actor strike a Faustian pact that will come to involve Viscount Brooke, Tom Turner, Mrs Land and others in their lives.

Erskine thinks he holds the aces but the others know his vulnerabilities. As this deal with the devil intensifies, Erskine’s lover asks, “How on Earth do you live with yourself?” The critic’s reply is pure Sir Ian: “Well,’’ he says with a small smile, “it’s a struggle.”

This film is an adaptation of the 2015 novel by an author with an actor’s name: Anthony Quinn. It’s entertaining throughout, especially for McKellen’s acerbic performance, even if it becomes a tad over-theatrical towards the end.

The Critic (M)

101 minutes
In cinemas

★★★