The Seagull

The Seagull is lush and dreamlike, leaving the drawing room for lake, field, and forest. Though we lose some of Chekhov’s claustrophobic talkiness, the dense poetry of his language, Mayer fully captures Chekhov’s sharp humor.

The Seagull, Anton Chekhov’s classic play about failed hopes and tangled attractions, is solid and satisfying in Michael Mayer’s intimate retelling for the screen.

Bening is great fun to watch here, even when she’s just watching.

The result is entertaining enough, particularly when Annette Bening whirls through a scene.

Seagull, as radiantly self-absorbed as Bening can be, as self-serious as Howle and Stoll come off, as winsome as Ronan remains and as funny and cranky as Moss’s mastery of Masha might be, never quite adds up to an adaptation that’s anything more than “Well, we saw them do Chekhov.”

Productions of Anton Chekhov’s The Seagull almost always tip too far into farce or wade too deeply into tragedy, unable to sustain the play’s elusive balancing act. Michael Mayer’s lush and lively big-screen adaption is unfortunately no exception.

One has to wonder why the film was even made if it had to be so disastrously compromised. Chekhov would be appalled.

Annette Bening is one of those actors who will always draw me to a film while I am enjoying watching Saorise Ronan's career and where it is going. Mare Winningham, Brian Dennehy and Elisabeth Moss are dependable actors always doing good work so adding these factors together I decided to go see "The Seagull" instead of "Adrift" which only had the appeal of Shailene Woodley. I've seen some of Chekhov's plays many years ago but never particularly liked or disliked him and this movie, with a screenplay by Stephen Karam, doesn't sway me one way or another. For a story about lovers, there is very little love. Irina (Annette Bening) a celebrated, insecure, jealous actress is in love with the much younger successful writer Boris (Corey Stoll) who falls in love with Nina (Saoirse Ronan) a want to be actress much younger than he is and has a budding writer, Konstatin (Billy Howle), Irina's son, who, by the way, is in love with Nina and in turn he is loved by Marsha (Elisabeth Moss), a secret drinker, who is loved by schoolteacher Medvedenko (Michael Zegen). Did I miss anyone? Oh yes, Polina, (Mare Winningham) who runs the house and is married to Shamrayev (Glenn Fleshler) but is in love with Doctor Dorn (Jon Tenney) who is taking care of Sorin (Brian Dennehy) who is dying and is Irina's brother. "The Seagull" runs 99 minutes and that's a lot of people and stories to cover and many are shortchanged but most have a minute or two, some more, to show what an actor can do with the time they are given. The most striking scenes are the ones between Annette Bening and Corey Stoll during a lover's quarrel and another between her and Billy Howle as she attacks her son and yet holds the audience's sympathy. Both Winningham and Moss get their moment with the former declaring her love for the doctor and the latter explaining why she drinks and is 'mourning' for the life she will lead. Brian Dennehy has a striking scene with Bening as he hits her where her insecurities lie. Bening and Stoll are the standouts of the cast while Howle is too 'modern' to fit in with the rest, going overboard in most of his scenes. "The Seagull" is shorter than most films are today and, yet, seems longer as it tries to cover too much, too many personalities. Though you will do a lot worse than seeing acting of this caliber bringing their A game, I really can't say yes to this film for an introduction to Chekhov and it might be cut too bare for those who are familiar with his play.

Bland and unfortunately boring. The cast does seem to be interested in the project but the director fails to exploit their talent and also fails to exploit the script. This is the case of films with quality of manufacture and production but that falls short with everything else.

The Seagull was a hugely disappointing film for me. While it clearly has good production values, the treatment of Chekhov is just boring. I have seen absolutely thrilling, gut-wrenching, and hilarious productions of The Seagull on stage, and this movie just feels really bland and rushed. A lot of the acting is just subpar with not a whole lot of effort put behind the performances. If you can go see a good production of The Seagull onstage in New York City or Chicago or Stratford or London or Moscow or at a good regional equity theater, go see that instead.

(Mauro Lanari) Amorous triangles and quadrangles all theatrically unrequited and lots of very close-ups of Ronin and Bening, then continuous whining, Dennehy who falls asleep and snores, the young protagonist who shoots himself twice. The moviegoer is undecided among which of these behaviors to imitate.