Natasha Kermani's The Dreadful is set during the Wars of the Roses, and if you want to understand how common men and women lived and survived during such a period, don't listen to Jago's (Kit Harington) generic talk about a river of blood and real hell. Instead, look at Morwen (Marcia Gay Harden) and her survival strategy, which earns her and her daughter-in-law, Anne (Sophie Turner), their bread and butter. Morwen steals from sisters, fellow churchgoers, and corpses (Anne merely takes things from corpses).
In one scene, Morwen stabs a wounded young castaway to death, signals the all-clear to Anne, and steals coins and other valuable objects from the bodies of the young man and an older man lying beside him—also dead. When Anne asks about it, Morwen tells her that the men drowned. "God is smiling at us to send such good luck," Morwen assures Anne. "He smashed those pirates against our rocks for our benefit," she adds.
These are desperate times, which is why Morwen takes desperate measures—so desperate that she does not hesitate to kill a man of God, an act she justifies by labeling the priest a "fool" and a "charlatan." In Morwen's eyes, everybody is wicked. Only she and Anne are innocent. Something tells me that under different circumstances, Morwen would have killed and looted Anne as well. The only reasons she does not are that (a) Anne has no money and (b) Morwen has no other relative or friend.
Her son and Anne's husband, Seamus (Laurence O'Fuarain), is dead—or so Jago tells them—so Morwen now firmly attaches herself to Anne to avoid complete loneliness. But how long will she be able to keep her close, given that Jago wants to marry Anne and take her away? As children, Morwen, Jago, and Seamus were close friends. Jago was always jealous of Seamus, and now he develops a strong desire for Anne. Hence, it seems quite possible that Jago may have lied about Seamus's death.
Amidst all this drama, Kermani introduces dreamy, surreal elements such as an ominous knight and macabre nightmares. These enigmatic images are of a piece with the personal drama unfolding in the mortal realm, but they are accompanied by a lugubrious tone and a thudding pace. Kermani deploys her images in the service of moral messages. One of them, about the self-destructive outcome of greed, is delivered as a plot twist, while the other, about women's independence, comes in the form of a bald statement. As a result, neither Kermani's intentions nor her visuals spark intellectual engagement or stir the imagination.
Kermani attempts to create a fantasy-horror piece of gothic proportions, but despite her exertions, what remains is a plain drama that yields a mind-numbingly dull and stunningly sterile experience. In that sense, the film faithfully lives up to its title.
Final Score- [3/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
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Publisher at Midgard Times