King Lear

United Kingdom

2008

173 Min

Color

1.66:1

English

Currently 4.0/5 Stars.
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CAST Ian McKellen, Romola Garaï, Frances Barber, Monica Dolan, William Gaunt, Jonathan Hyde, Philip Winchester, Sylvester McCoy

King Lear, old and tired, divides his kingdom among his daughters, giving great importance to their protestations of love for him. When Cordelia, youngest and most honest, refuses to idly flatter the old man in return for favor, he banishes her and turns for support to his remaining daughters. But Goneril and Regan have no love for him and instead plot to take all his power from him. In a parallel, Lear’s loyal courtier Gloucester favors his illegitimate son Edmund after being told lies about his faithful son Edgar. Madness and tragedy befall both ill-starred fathers. —IMDb

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DT

1Apr12

A bit of a trek in spots, but the play's high points are just so majestical and performed with such intensity here that they simply sweep you off your feet. Containing some of the most magnificently scathing polemic ever hurled in Shakespearean folio - an aspect this performance does indeed take full note of - and with veteran McKellen spearheading the fiery cast, this emerges as an oft-electrifying reading.

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