User Reviews

I have to say that I have not seen this film. But I did see the stage production on which it is based. A single actress reciting Eliot's "The Waste Land" may not strike you as very interesting. But Fiona Shaw and director Deborah Warner are so brilliant that their collaboration remains one of the most memorable theatrical experiences in my life. In New York, this short performance cost more than $2 a minute. But it was sold out, and no one felt short changed. Fiona Shaw rarely appears in films or even on stage in America. And while she is always amazing in her short roles -- as the paralyzed professor in Doctor Sleep or mean Aunt Petunia in the Harry Potter series -- this performance allows her to show her full power and range. If the film catches even part of the magic of the stage production, it is certainly worth checking out.

When the actress Fiona Shaw, and her oft-times collaborator, Deborah Warner first staged T.S. Eliot's celebrated poem in a disused Victorian music hall in London's East End, it was hailed as a seminal event. Shaw, alone on a stage lit by a single bare bulb, became every voice in Eliot's haunting masterpiece. But this was no academic feat of memory or worship: the poem became something else - a highly dramatic and lively examination of culture, destruction, despair and forgiveness. The show went on to tour the world, in every instance (from New York to Sydney) care was taken to find a setting that enhanced the text. This adaptation of that staging does not replicate the theatrical experience (and therefore create a pale imitation) - it embraces its own format and triumphs in those terms. It's a great bit of film - not a good bit of filmed theatre. Fiona Shaw is rightly hailed as the greatest actress of her generation, so it is no surprise to see a performance of absolute dedication and feeling - but it is exhilarating none the less.