Playwright Peter Shaffer received Oscar and BAFTA nominations for adapting his stage play about a brow-beaten, sexually repressed young British man who develops an odd and unhealthy equine obsession (not with riding or fornicating with horses, but seeing himself as one). This duality of horse and human relations has caused the boy to become shut-off from normal feelings and, after a failed sexual tryst with a woman, pent-up frustrations cause the kid to commit an unspeakable act. What many critics called a powerful story plays out like fake Greek tragedy, what with busy psychiatrist Richard Burton (who is closed-off for reasons of his own!) taking the boy's case and often addressing the camera directly while going into his obtuse arias (soliloquies which are knee-deep in psychobabble). Director Sidney Lumet gives us a psychological drama full of lofty literary prestige, but what does any of it mean? The classy look of the picture (the unobtrusive design and lack of bright color) lends the ungainly story an air of solemn importance--and there are bracing sequences set inside the horse stable where Peter Firth is employed--but Burton keeps hammering away at this case study without enlightening us. The performances are commendable, particularly from Firth (reprising his stage success, the actor's twisted-angel quality is nearly touching though milked for all its worth by Lumet). The dialogue could use more variation in tempo; these wordy passages are so ravaged and heated, they shut the audience out emotionally. Yes, these pages are prestigious terrain for the actors, but there's not much for the audience to respond to until Lumet tries out some cinematic tricks (not avoiding the nudity--nor the violence--integral to the story). "Equus" is a cold movie masquerading as a quizzical puzzle, a picture about insanity being palmed off as a human tragedy. However, the themes here are not universal, and the result is merely high-minded in place of mysterious or intriguing. Three Oscar nominations in all with no wins; five BAFTA nominations total with one win: for Jenny Agutter as Best Supporting Actress. ** from ****
Review of Equus
