Review: On Joel Coen's 'The Tragedy of Macbeth,' a recommendation in five acts

I. "If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly."

Joel Coen's "The Tragedy of Macbeth" may have a slightly longer title than past adaptations of the Scottish Play, but the movie itself, at 105 minutes, is actually tighter than most. It's a few minutes shy of Justin Kurzel's "Macbeth" (2015), the most recent major screen adaptation, and more than a half-hour shorter than Roman Polanski's 1971 film, perhaps the maddest and grisliest of the lot. If Coen's retelling feels exceptionally fleet, it's because he has slashed away lines and even passages of Shakespeare's text with his own Macbeth-like ruthlessness; he distills each sequence to its furious essence. Scenes flow into one another with a swiftness and elegance that builds its own momentum. Rarely have these nightmarish events seemed more inevitable.

The visuals are as stripped down as the words.