Review: 'The Green Knight' is a visually brilliant version of the Arthurian tale, boldly modern and timeless

Boldly modern in its visual sweep and carrying the heft of an ancient folk tale, writer-director David Lowery’s “The Green Knight” is an epic take on a centuries-old story.

The story Lowery draws from is more than 600 years old, and takes place another 900 years before that. It starts at a round table one Christmas Eve, as the king (Sean Harris) and his queen (Kate Dickey) are partying with Arthur’s knights — the youngest, and most earnest, being Sir Gawain (played by Dev Patel).

The revelry is interrupted by the arrival of a fearsome, and silent, knight on horseback. The knight hands over a letter with a “Christmas game”: He will allow one of the king’s knights to strike with a weapon — but, next Christmas, that knight must find the visitor at his home, the Green Chapel, so the interloper can return the blow.

Gawain offers to take up the challenge, and the king gives him his sword. The stranger does not fight back, and instead kneels down to offer his neck for the cutting. When Gawain strikes, decapitating the knight, the knight picks up his head and rides away — and Gawain knows his goose is cooked one year hence. (None of this is really a spoiler — it’s in the trailer, has been told in numerous other movies, and is from the 14th century.)

So Gawain leaves behind his mother (Sarita Choudhury), who might be a witch, and his lover, a brothel maid named Essel (played by an almost unrecognizably deglamorized Alicia Vikander), to meet his destiny. Along the way, Gawain has several encounters — which is where Gawain’s mettle is tested, and where Lowery creates moments of pure visual splendor.

I don’t want to say much more, because what Lowery and cinematographer Andrew Droz Palermo (who shot Lowery’s “A Ghost Story”) is so arresting — creating images that will sear into the viewer’s brain. Another reason to keep quiet: There are actors who pop up along Gawain’s journey who are genuinely surprising to encounter, as they force Patel’s Gawain to face his fears on the way to his moral reckoning.

Patel (“Slumdog Millionaire,” “The Personal History of David Copperfield”) once again proves he’s among the finest leading men of our era, capturing Gawain’s headstrong nature and the hard-won life lessons collected on his grueling journey. Patel provides the humanity that anchors the dreamlike, sometimes surreal images that Lowery produces, a dose of old-soul wisdom that makes “The Green Knight” a story for the ages.

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‘The Green Knight’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, July 30, in theaters. Rated R for violence, some sexuality and graphic nudity. Running time: 125 minutes.