Word: equus
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...MINDS of many film critics and committed moviegoers, Sidney Lumet has been tried, convicted and sentenced. His offence against the entertainment world: wilfully tampering with Peter Shaffer's masterpiece Equus in Lumet's film adaptation of what may be the play of the '70s. Reviewers have pilloried Lumet for abandoning the example of the record-shattering Broadway production, and instead applying his personal imprint to the movie version. But such bad-mouthing has an unfair ring; if the director had retained the heavy-handed horse symbolism of the stage version, the critics' court probably would have found Lumet guilty...
...opening portions of Equus unveil the two recurring images that will dominate the film's visual dimension: a close-up of the doubt-ridden psychiatrist Martin Dysart (Burton) musing about the complex case of his teenage patient Alan Strang (Firth), and a darkness-clothed scene of a naked Strang standing beside a horse, the object of his near psychotic obsession. Lumet fills his lens with Dysart's ruminating face, punctuating the narrative with the Shakespearean soliloquies of the confused shrink. At times, these infrequent monologues border on the histrionic, as Burton casts off the necessary restraint of a film star...
...devote his life to understanding the human psyche, something that cannot ever be fully understood. Yet his statements have a broader significance for the audience, challenging each individual to justify his existence. As Dysart quotes the young Strang, paying homage to the portrait of a horse: "Account for me, Equus...
...that is why Shaffer stalls his inevitable denouement by padding the film's doctor-patient scenes with flashbacks that detail Alan's past. Despite a nude appearance by Jenny Agutter and cameo performances by such fine actors as Colin Blakely, Joan Plowright, Harry Andrews and Eileen Atkins, Equus' digressions are little more than excuses to fetch popcorn...
...exchanges between Equus 'antagonists are scarcely more exciting. Firth's performance, seemingly so natural in a theater, looks artificial in closeup. Burton provides a curiously bland Dysart who lacks the high-pitched emotional constipation that both Anthony Hopkins and Alec McCowen brought to stage productions. Lumet tries to save the day by flooding Burton's speeches with melodramatic lighting and music, but no such makeshift remedy can cure Equus of its congenital limp. - Frank Rich