The Crucible | Full Movie | Movies Anywhere

A competent, uncontroversial, rather shouty version of a play which is now safely canonical and, if the philistinism may be forgiven, less remarkable than it once seemed, when dramas of the liberal conscience had an urgent edge.

The clarity of the direction and the quality of the acting make it the best rendition of the author's work that any of us is likely to see either on screen or on stage.

Plodding film based on play has mature themes, sex, violence

Then there's always Mr. Scofield, bringing an almost unbearable, yet entirely believable, lightness of spirit to his loathsome character. It's a bold stroke by a great actor, making zealotry and evil seem positively beneficent.

I recommend Hytner's movie highly, but a part of me resists a work that makes the audience feel as noble in our moral certainty as the characters it invites us to deplore. Some part of its power seems borrowed from the thing it hates.