Coriolanus (2011)

Shakespeare's Coriolanus has always been one of the more troublesome plays in the canon. Written around 1608, it centres on Caius Martius Coriolanus, a Roman general whose contempt for the common people makes him one of the least sympathetic protagonists in all of the playwright's work. Scholars have long argued over its politics, with both the left and the right claiming it as their own at various points in history, and that ambiguity is part of what makes it such a strange, resistant piece of drama. It has never enjoyed the same popular standing as Hamlet or Macbeth, which perhaps explains why, prior to this 2011 adaptation, it had not previously been given a major theatrical film treatment. The production relocates the action to a recognisably contemporary European conflict zone, filmed across Italy, Montenegro, and Serbia, giving the whole thing a visual vocabulary borrowed from cable news and war reportage.

This is the directorial debut of Ralph Fiennes, who also takes the title role. Fiennes had, by this point, established himself as one of the more serious and technically gifted actors working in British cinema, with a career built on roles demanding formidable intensity (you can see something of that same commanding presence in his work reviewed here on the site, including The Grand Budapest Hotel and, in a very different register, The Prince of Egypt). Stepping behind the camera for the first time, he co-produced the film through a partnership involving BBC Film, Synchronistic Pictures, and Icon Entertainment International. The screenplay was adapted by John Logan, who worked from Shakespeare's original text rather than modernising the language, a choice that sits in deliberate, and sometimes jarring, tension with the contemporary setting. Gerard Butler appears opposite Fiennes as Tullus Aufidius, Coriolanus' sworn enemy and eventual uneasy ally. Jessica Chastain takes the role of Virgilia, Coriolanus' wife, while Lubna Azabal and Ashraf Barhom round out a cast that brings an international texture to the Roman world. Vanessa Redgrave, in the role of Volumnia, the general's domineering and ambitious mother, is the other performance most widely discussed in relation to the film.

The film arrived in a period when modernised Shakespeare was hardly a new idea, but the specific aesthetic choices here, handheld cameras, rolling news graphics, and the visual grammar of Balkan conflict, positioned it as something more than a straightforward heritage adaptation. Whether those choices pay off is exactly the sort of question worth sitting with before you read what follows.

A-Z World Movie Tour Montenegro Ralph Fiennes’ directorial take on Coriolanus is an ambitious attempt to bridge Shakespeare’s verse with modern political warfare, setting the tragedy of the Roman general against a backdrop of tabloid journalism, televised rallies, and urban conflict. The concept works better in theory than execution. While I appreciated the decision to retain the original Early Modern English (the language cuts through the contemporary setting with a certain gravitas) the overall impact is diluted by a tone that’s consistently grim without being gripping. It’s a film that feels important, but rarely compelling. Fiennes gives a solid, physically imposing performance in the title role, capturing Coriolanus’ arrogance and emotional rigidity, but the character’s fundamental unlikeability isn’t transcended, it’s just reinforced. Unlike Julius Caesar or Hamlet, there’s little internal conflict to latch onto; Coriolanus is prideful, scornful, and alienating from start to finish, and the film doesn’t do enough to make his downfall feel tragic rather than inevitable. Vanessa Redgrave, as Volumnia, delivers a powerhouse monologue late on, but even her raw emotion can’t fully elevate the material. The decision to use handheld “shakycam” for battle sequences and political unrest (presumably to evoke a war documentary feel) only adds to the film’s fatigue. It’s disorienting without being immersive, robbing key scenes of clarity and weight. And while the modernisation has flashes of insight, it never reaches the electrifying fusion of style and substance achieved by Baz Luhrmann in Romeo + Juliet. Made on a modest budget and returning barely a third at the box office, Coriolanus feels like a noble effort that ultimately underwhelms.

For me, that tension between ambition and result is the thing that lingers longest after the credits roll. There are moments here that genuinely crackle, and I have a lot of time for any project willing to treat Shakespeare as living, contested material rather than a museum piece. But a film can respect its source and still feel like hard work to sit through, and this one, for stretches, does. If you want to see Fiennes in something that achieves the tonal balance this one reaches for, The Grand Budapest Hotel is a better place to look. Coriolanus is the kind of film you admire more than you enjoy, and there is, I think, a real difference between the two.

Rating: ★★  | Year: 2011  | Watched: 2025-07-25

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Trailer

▶ Watch the official trailer for Coriolanus (2011) on YouTube

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