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| Twentieth Century Fox | Release Date: November 27, 1996 |
Starring:
Bruce Davison, Charlayne Woodard, Daniel Day-Lewis, Jeffrey Jones, Joan Allen, Karron Graves, Paul Scofield, Peter Vaughan, Rob Campbell, Winona Ryder
Summary:
A Salem resident attempts to frame her ex-lover's wife for being a witch in the middle of the 1692 witchcraft trials.
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The Crucible shrewdly
saves its most potent ammo for the end, audience-friendly showmanship
to further signify a bang-up movie. [27 Nov 1996]
The ironies of the piece, adapted by Arthur Miller from his own 1953 play on the perils of McCarthyism, are savage and well served by a top-notch cast perfectly attuned to the poetry of the dialogue and the parable's fiery passions. Hytner holds the action together with solid, unflashy, well-paced direction, ensuring that this is no mere period piece but a compelling, pertinent account of human fear, frailty and cold ambition.
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Also good is Ryder, who made such an impression as the perfect sister in "Little Women." Here, she is quite a scary little psycho. Or as scary as any actress can be who is wearing a bonnet. [20 Dec 1996, p.74]
Hytner uses 360-degree camera turns and strange angle shots to inject this largely lifeless business with some drama. Ryder tries to do the same by nearly working herself into cardiac arrest in several monologues. Day-Lewis is acting so hard you can see his lower teeth, which, by the way are sometimes horribly decayed and other times white enough to blind a dental hygienist...See this movie at the peril of your soul.
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