Review – Reds

This is one of the few times I’ve ever seen a director take five hours of screen time and actually do something with it. Warren Beatty casts himself as Jack Reed, the semi-legendary author of Ten Days that Shook the World. The main focus of the story seems to be the turbulent relationship between Reed and Louise Bryant (Diane Keaton). But far more interesting than the couple’s squabbles and sexual escapades are the background stories: the radical left’s opposition to U.S. entry into World War One, art and theatre on the east coast, and particularly the Russian Revolution. Even the casting reflects the pre-eminence of the background, with Jack Nicholson playing Bryant’s sometime-lover Eugene O’Neil and Maureen Stapleton garnering an Oscar for her performance as Emma Goldman. The overall point of the picture appears to be a lament about how much happier the protagonists might have been as a traditional married couple rather than players in the great political dramas of the second decade of the 20th century. But thank goodness for the audience they made the choices they did, however badly it worked out for them. Worth seeing