Waiting for the Barbarians (2019)

The metaphors are a bit too numerous and on the nose at times, but Rylance’s unbelievable performance overshadows the minor downfalls.

Despite the on-the-nose delivery of its messaging being intentional, Coetzee’s script will surely alienate some viewers. The slow pacing won’t do it any favors either, considering it promises weightier drama than that heightened, moralizing tone could ever provide.

Ciro Guerra never quite finds an imagistic equivalent to the novel’s apocalyptic mood and subtly hallucinogenic atmosphere.

Depp could be dismissed as just a name and a costume who got the film financed, but his Franco-Teutonic take on Joll never quite crosses into caricature. It’s good to see him putting in the effort. Pattinson? His tiny part basically is just a name and a costume who got the film financed.

It’s easy to read the film as a not particularly subtle metaphor for fascism or “the war on terror”, and its black hats aren’t so much characters as automatons.