A Field in England

• A Field in England is sometimes experimental and mostly successful.
• Primarily because Director Ben Wheatley capitalizes on his lush setting, using black and white photography to craft an impressive visual spectacle.
• Which the director further enhances with clever artistic flourishes, like having actors stand still for long seconds, as the camera lingers on their frozen forms. Each time Wheatley uses the technique, he emphasizes significant narrative developments and propels the plot.
• His non-conventional camera angles and image frames are equally successful.
• So are the movie’s costumes, hair styles, props, and, indeed, color palette. Through all of these elements, Wheatley  immerses us in seventeenth century England.
• Writer Amy Jump’s screenplay does the same. The characters speak in lilting vocabulary that fuses Shakespearean romanticism and Tom Stoppard comedy, a combination that makes Jump’s dialogue accessible but also fittingly archaic.
• In other words, A Field in England has a spectacular sense of period.
• Which doubtlessly helps explain how it survives one trait characters. Friend (Richard Glover) is the stupid one; O’Neill (Michael Smiley) the sadistic one; Whitehead (Reece Shearsmith) the intellectual cowardly one. Such thinly developed characters usually ruin a movie, but here they do not.
• No doubt courtesy, at least partially, of the actors. Each of their performances are note-perfect, always delivering exactly what the picture needs.
• Still, weak characterization remains one of A Field in England’s primary issues. Through the film’s first half, Cutler (Ryan Pope) and Jacob (Peter Ferdinando) are interchangeable ciphers, both of them angry travelers and naught else, a fact that proves problematic midway through when Cutler starts threatening Whitehead. Because he isn’t initially defined as ‘O’Neill’s lapdog,’ Cutler’s eventual behavior is off-putting.
• A second, and more significant, issue is the way Wheatley blocks his actors and uses slow-motion, random images, and rapid editing to illustrate the effects of hallucinogenic mushrooms. He does not produce a sense of crazed mania, but rather a tedious onslaught of overstimulation that becomes increasingly difficult to watch and thereby reduces, not increases, the viewer’s engagement.
• To Wheatley and Jump’s credit, however, A Field in England does not succumb to either flaw. Its friendship theme, gorgeous cinematography, artistic flourishes, enchanting dialogue, period details, and strong performances are enough to retain the viewer’s investment.
• And to make A Field in England worthwhile viewing.
• Final Grade: B