THE STORY – In 1831 plague sweeps across Europe, killing half the population of England. As King Richard II and the oligarchs impose a brutal tax on the poorest members of society, a farmer’s simmering discontent erupts into full-blown anger. Within days, he leads a ferocious rebellion as thousands of commoners march on London in the name of justice and freedom.
THE CAST – Andrew Garfield, Jamie Bell, Stephen Dillane, Tom Hollander, Cosmo Jarvis, Thomasin McKenzie, Jonny Lee Miller, Woody Norman & Katherine Waterston
THE TEAM – Paul Greengrass (Director/Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 128 Minutes
Academy Award nominee Paul Greengrass is a filmmaker whose propulsive style has repeatedly placed audiences inside chaotic moments of violence, panic, and historical upheaval. In “The Uprising,” he turns to the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, taking a centuries-old struggle between England’s impoverished population and its ruling class and turning it into an angry reflection of contemporary inequality, or at least that’s what he was aiming to do. With Andrew Garfield leading a strong ensemble, the film channels the fury of people pushed toward rebellion after every peaceful avenue for change has failed. Yet for all its good intentions and contemporary relevance, “The Uprising” is undermined by unfitting stylistic choices and a screenplay that rarely lets its characters or provocative ideas rise to the surface.
England remains devastated by the Black Death, which has killed half the country’s population and left its survivors struggling to rebuild their lives. The nameless Ploughman (Garfield) is a farmer working hard in the cold and decaying field where he once had a warm life. Haunted by the deaths of his wife and children, he encounters a country in which ordinary people are being crushed beneath increasingly severe taxation imposed by the council governing on behalf of the young King Richard II (Woody Norman). After a violent confrontation with the King’s tax collectors, the Ploughman’s personal grief becomes the spark for a much larger rebellion. Joined by military veteran Wat Tyler (Cosmo Jarvis), radical priest John Ball (Jamie Bell), and thousands of desperate citizens, he marches toward London to demand justice from a ruler they still believe has their best interests at heart and who they do not wish to overthrow if he meets their demands.
The film wastes no time diving into the central conflict that pushes the Ploughman into a momentous wave of anger and resistance, but this also hurts the overall film, as we never fully get to know these characters beyond what the plot needs them to do. Greengrass establishes the cruelty of this world immediately, creating a forceful sense of momentum (Something he’s always been proficient at) as one man’s resistance outgrows him and spreads across the country. That urgency makes the uprising feel spontaneous and combustible, but it prevents the film from sufficiently developing many of the individuals caught within it. For example, Thomasin McKenzie plays Alyce, a woman who has also lost a lot like the Ploughman, but beyond that shared bond, the film doesn’t give her enough material to become a fully formed character worth caring about.
The film’s most compelling emotional basis comes from Garfield, who turns the Ploughman into more than a conventional revolutionary hero. He suitably illustrates the heartbreak and frustration of a widower who has had enough after losing everything that was already near and dear to him in this world. Still, he also conveys the mournful regret of having to resort to fighting and spilling blood to achieve rectitude for the common folk whose lives are being squeezed out by a ruler who views them as lesser. Garfield’s naturally empathetic screen presence makes it easy to see why others would follow him and why we still side with him, even after he has spilled blood, no matter how virtuous it might be considered to those who feel they have no other choice. Without him, the film would fall apart more than it already does.
The supporting ensemble adds real force to a film that doesn’t always give its performers enough room to develop their characters fully. Cosmo Jarvis as Wat Tyler is once again, as is the case in nearly every project he appears in, so commanding in his screen presence that he practically demands his own top of the call sheet starring role at some point. Jarvis gives Tyler a forceful conviction that complements the Ploughman’s more reluctant involvement in the revolt, thus making him one of the more exciting characters to follow. And Jamie Bell does everything he can as John Ball, the English priest who used justifications of God and religion to push the revolt forward despite the carnage it would create in the process. Together, these characters represent different approaches to rebellion, even if the screenplay does not probe the tensions between their beliefs deeply enough.
On the opposing side stands a young monarch whose inexperience and fears leave England vulnerable to those governing in his name. The boy King is weak, and because of that weakness, his council rules instead of him; when he eventually finds his authoritative voice, that insecurity gives way to even more brutal means of subjugation. His development provides “The Uprising” with an effective counterpoint to the Ploughman. The uprising transforms both men, but while one discovers the courage to challenge authority and lead his people from a position of humility, the other learns how ruthlessly that authority must be wielded to preserve itself because he will not accept his own humility. It’s an interesting contrast, and Norman does an admirable job of elevating what is otherwise a thinly written, clichéd character.
Despite the actors’ performances, “The Uprising” visually suffers from an approach that too often works against its material. Paul Greengrass and his cinematographer, Pål Ulvik Rokseth, use the typical shaky, handheld camera to tell the story. This isn’t the first time Greengrass has used this technique, but it may be the biggest mismatch in his filmography so far. Where the technique works for tense, almost docudrama cinema verite stylized re-tellings of more modern true stories such as “United 93” or “Captain Phillips,” his latest needed a steadier hand to capture the harshness of the landscapes, the expressiveness of the performances by the actors, and the intimate, more character-driven moments. Instead, other than the action scenes where the camera’s uneasiness is most at ease in telling the story Greengrass wants to communicate (One of chaos and the nature of political violence), it often distracts and leaves the film feeling uglier and more dizzying than it should, with no concentrated direction other than what we receive through Garfield’s performance. That visual inconsistency becomes even more noticeable whenever the film abandons its dominant aesthetic altogether. Many swooping aerial shots look like they were shot practically with a drone, created by visual effects, or a combination of both. Either way, they’re distracting because they stand out against the shooting style the rest of the movie uses: rocky, dirty, and unpolished. Rather than broadening the scope of the rebellion, these images feel disconnected from the immediacy Greengrass is otherwise attempting to establish. Slow motion appears in the fight scenes, particularly the climactic one, for dramatic effect, but once Greengrass has established the film’s visual language for most of its runtime, switching things up at the very end detracts more than it enhances. Even Oscar-winner Volker Bertelmann’s score (A composer I typically enjoy) isn’t lively enough to make up for the film’s other shortcomings.
The film’s tenuous association with the Robin Hood legend also feels more like a marketing miscalculation than an organic component of the story. The rebels wear masks to conceal their faces during their strategic attacks, making them feel like the outlaws that inspired Robin Hood, which is exactly what the bizarre marketing of the film (Where the studio panicked in the weeks leading up to the theatrical release and all of a sudden decided to try and make this some Robin Hood tie-in, which it is not) tried to sell to audiences. However, Robin Hood was already mentioned in Piers Ploughman (Most likely composed in the 1370s, before the Peasants’ Revolt), and previous Robin Hood adaptations generally set the story in the late twelfth century during the reign of Richard the Lionheart (Nearly two centuries earlier). The comparison may have given the studio a recognizable hook from the film’s inception. But shoehorning it in after the film was already made reduces a complex historical revolt to something that it’s not and only showcases the studio’s own insecurity enough to rival King Richard II.
Where “The Uprising” is most compelling is in the uncomfortable relevance of its central conflict for today’s audiences. Humility, accountability, and justice are what we demand of our leaders when they have failed us, and in this day and age where tensions are so high between the ruling upper class who have all the power in this country, crushing those on the ground for their capitalistic gains, or our tyrannical leaders who are in cahoots with the 1% wealthiest people in the country and are meant to serve their citizens, but instead would rather keep building walls and systems of oppression to cut off those who need their help the most and leave them to fend for themselves in this harsh and unforgiving world, it’s only natural that when all other peaceful forms of protest fail, it could give way to more violent means in achieving fairness and equality. The movie tries to tell the audience that violence is not the answer, but it also seems to suggest that it works. Ok, then at what cost? The answer is as rough and messy as some of the battle scenes in this movie. That contradiction should be the film’s most intellectually challenging quality, but Greengrass and the screenplay never thoroughly examine it. On a broad, surface level, the film could be considered crowd-pleasing as we watch the oppressed fight back, take control of their destinies, and try to make things right for future generations. However, revenge as a means of real change is complicated to dissect and communicate responsibly on-screen. It’s not something to be mindlessly cheered on without exploring the ramifications it has not just on the individual but on society as a whole, something the film seems all too comfortable to forgo. The violence is presented as horrifying and regrettable, yet it is also frequently staged as a rousing expression of power, revenge, and the balancing of the scales between the haves and the have-nots. That unresolved tension leaves the film caught between condemning bloodshed and inviting the audience to celebrate it.
“The Uprising” contains many elements that should make for a stirring historical epic: a righteous struggle against inequality, immediate political parallels, an intriguing supporting cast, and another stellar performance from Andrew Garfield. Greengrass remains highly effective whenever the rebellion erupts into disorder, capturing the intensity and brutality of ordinary people fighting against a system designed to crush them. Yet his restless visual approach becomes exhausting during the quieter scenes, while the screenplay rushes past the character development and moral complexity needed to give the film its full emotional punch. The film has plenty of anger but lacks the clarity to turn that rage into something truly powerful and meaningful for today. Robin Hood or not, this muddy historical drama, which should’ve been right up my alley considering my personal taste for historical medieval dramas, doesn’t quite rise to the occasion.
