The legend of William Tell, the Swiss folk hero who was an expert marksman and mountain climber, dates back to the 1470s. Still, its consolidation throughout history possibly reaches its most diluted form in William Tell. To whatever degree Tell—whose first name was more accurately “Wilhelm”—actually existed, he was the face of a rebellion borne by tyrannicide that led to the foundation of the Swiss Confederacy in the early 1300s. By the late 1500s, the legend, including all the apocryphal details regarding the impossible shot at an apple atop his son’s head, was fully popularized as having fathered the confederate movement in Switzerland. To underscore the massive gap in centuries here, writer-director Nick Hamm’s film is an adaptation of Friedrich von Schiller’s 1804 play, which was directly inspired by writings from 300 years prior.
This is a long and complicated way of getting around to the fact that Hamm has probably taken the most sensible approach to the story, which is framed as a simple and old-fashioned swashbuckler. It’s handsomely produced, and there’s such sincerity about the project that it feels a little mean to criticize the result so heavily. The film, though, is both simple and old-fashioned in ways that are not always flattering. While the production is handsome, the story also spins its wheels so much that the many attempts to rouse fall flat.
The story falls right in line with the play and writings that inspired it: Tell (Claes Bang) is locked in battle with Gessler (an appropriately slimy Connor Swindells), a tyrannical ruler under the Habsburgs who gives Tell a cruel ultimatum. If Tell wants himself and his son to avoid a brutal death, Tell must shoot an apple off his son’s head using his legendary skills. As the story goes, Tell conceals a second arrow as a contingency plan to kill Gessler if his son is harmed. That leads an enraged Gessler to arrest Tell for purely political purposes, which in turn sparks rebellion within the kingdom.
There are a lot of other characters, too, such as Tell’s wife, Suna (Golshifteh Farahani), whose sole purpose is to shift from terrified wife to vocal, but underutilized, warrior, and Rudenz (Jonah Hauer-King), whose father, Attinghausen (Jonathan Pryce), is nearing death. King Albert (Ben Kingsley), whose punishing taxes are enforced by Gessler with no forgiveness attached, has also promised his daughter, Princess Bertha (Ellie Bamber), to Gessler, though she is in love with Rudenz. There are also Rafe Spall and Emily Beecham as allies to the Swiss rebellion, but unfortunately, a lot of these subplots suffer from a lack of anything specifically intriguing. It’s a lot of broad melodrama, sinister scheming and too-earnest performances (except for Bamber, whose character should get her own movie) in between the action sequences.
Those scenes are when William Tell temporarily comes to life, but even then, the stakes are primarily attached to a conflict that feels like it’s only leading in one direction. To his credit, Hamm does end this story on a different note than the original legend (to specify what the real ending was might suggest too much about what this version changes, so let’s leave it at that). That’s not as much an act of subversion as the filmmaker seems to believe, though, because it’s all about getting us to the point of considering a sequel or companion story to this one. As for this film, it’s a well-crafted but innately slight endeavor.
Photo courtesy of Samuel Goldwyn Films
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