Dev Patel as Sir Gawain wears a crown in a promotional poster for The Green Knight movie
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Trippy, Captivating The Green Knight Trailer Delivers All the Dev Patel We’ve Been Waiting For

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Kaila Hale-Stern
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Published: May 11, 2021 01:59 pm

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The Dev Patel-starring The Green Knight seems like no other Arthurian legend committed to screen, and I cannot wait. Written and directed by A Ghost Story’s David Lowery, the long-anticipated movie is finally headed our way on July 30th, 2021. Now a new full trailer has set social media on fire.

The Green Knight was originally slated for theatrical release in May of 2020, only to see COVID deny us of our Arthurian Patel fix. Ever since it was first announced and teased, the Internet has been in a frenzied love affair with The Green Knight, an understandable projection of our would-be frenzied love affair with Dev Patel. Over the last few years, Patel has risen to become an object of Extremely Online lustful appreciation.

It doesn’t hurt that he’s also a magnificent actor and that this film appears to fire on many other appealing cylinders: finally, a fresh take on an Arthurian adventure, with a diverse cast and stunning visual effects. It also looks spectacularly weird, and we’ll never say we’re not up for a ride through the fantastical bizarre.

This story is inspired by Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, one of the best-known Arthurian legends that continues to introduce audiences to the medieval motif of the beheading game. In that tale, Gawain, the youngest of Arthur’s knights, accepts a challenge from “The Green Knight,” here rendered to look very much like a Green Man, to cut off his head so long as in a year and a day Gawain will agree to accept the same treatment.

Gawain strikes off the Green Knight’s head, upon which the Green Knight calmly picks it back up again and goes on his merry way. Thereafter Gawain embarks on a quest to fulfill his terrifying promise, which will see his honor and his honesty put to the test before the year is up. There’s some sexy temptation, some mysterious magic-wielders, and a whole lot of trials. You know, standard Arthurian stuff.

Except this Green Knight promises to be a fantastic upgrade in every sense.

Lowery has gone full epic genre here, with a mystical Green Knight, a talking fox companion for Gawain, and many scenes that are intensely supernatural in nature. The story at the center appears to keep the bones of the Green Knight legend, but we’ll be seeing it in a whole new way. This beautiful, unsettling horror-tinged fantasy blend is a nice change from staid Arthurian adaptations or more recent attempts at “gritty” reboots. And the talented cast includes Patel, Alicia Vikander, Joel Edgerton, Sarita Choudhury, Barry Keoghan, Sean Harris, and our recent Karli Morgenthau from The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Erin Kellyman.

The movie also looks visually gorgeous, with scenes in the trailer that you just want to pause and gaze upon for their framing, eye-catching costumes and vistas, and, well, Dev Patel’s face.

There is an extreme level of social media-based excitement surrounding the movie—and its studio A24 also knows what we’re here for.

Why are so many of us so captivated by Patel? Well, I think we’ve covered quite a bit of that ground here, but this story never hurts.

What do you think of The Green Knight? Are you, and your body, ready for what Lowery, Patel, & Co. have created?

(images: A24)

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Author
Image of Kaila Hale-Stern
Kaila Hale-Stern
Kaila Hale-Stern (she/her) is a content director, editor, and writer who has been working in digital media for more than fifteen years. She started at TMS in 2016. She loves to write about TV—especially science fiction, fantasy, and mystery shows—and movies, with an emphasis on Marvel. Talk to her about fandom, queer representation, and Captain Kirk. Kaila has written for io9, Gizmodo, New York Magazine, The Awl, Wired, Cosmopolitan, and once published a Harlequin novel you'll never find.
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