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King Lear

King Lear

Drama · TV Movie · 2018

An aging King invites disaster, when he abdicates to his corrupt, toadying daughters, and rejects his loving and honest one.

Movie details

King Lear

2018 Drama · TV Movie 1h 55m

Critical arithmetic

One number, for now.

TMDB

6.0 / 10

Community rating

An aging King invites disaster, when he abdicates to his corrupt, toadying daughters, and rejects his loving and honest one.

CriticWise case file

What this film says about your taste.

Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.

The archetype split

Who fights over King Lear?

The split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.

Taste neighbourhood

Nearby on the taste map.

TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.

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Drama · 1984

Tom and Mae Garvey are a Tennessee farming couple battling violent floods to save their land. In addition to natural disasters, the Garveys fight to stop a selfish land developer and a local corporation from foreclosing on their farm. While Mae stays at home to care for their children and tend to the crops, Tom finds work as a scab at a steel mill to preserve his family's property.

White Lie

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Katie Arneson is faking cancer. A university dance major, Katie's falsified diagnosis and counterfeit fundraising have transformed her into a campus celebrity surrounded by the supportive community she's always dreamed of. But now dependent on a bursary for sick students to maintain her ruse, Katie learns the funding is in jeopardy unless she can provide copies of her medical records within the week.

Vanya on 42nd Street

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Drama · 1994

An uninterrupted rehearsal of Chekhov's 'Uncle Vanya' plays out by a company of actors. The setting: their run-down theater with an unusable stage and crumbling ceiling. The play is shown act by act with the briefest of breaks to move props or for refreshments. The lack of costumes, real props and scenery is soon forgotten.

Hamlet

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FX's A Christmas Carol

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Where it lives

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Names above the title

The people responsible.

Directed by

Richard Eyre

Written by

Richard Eyre

Anthony Hopkins

Anthony Hopkins

Lear

Emma Thompson

Emma Thompson

Goneril

Emily Watson

Emily Watson

Regan

Jim Broadbent

Jim Broadbent

Earl of Gloucester

Florence Pugh

Florence Pugh

Cordelia

Jim Carter

Jim Carter

Earl of Kent

Andrew Scott

Andrew Scott

Edgar

Court is in session

Put King Lear on trial.

Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.

The defence The Sentimental Softie

“Sincerity is not manipulation.”

The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.

The prosecution The Adrenaline Seeker

“The strings are showing.”

Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.