Cover of "Scotland, PA"

Cover of Scotland, PA

In Scotland, PA (2001), director-screenwriter Billy Morrisette parodies, and transfers to 1975, Macbeth.  By adapting a violent classic for a series of well-photographed scenes, Morrisette proves sort of a comic Claude Chabrol, out for fun.  His film is hilarious, and the cinematography by Wally Pfister is brightly handsome when it isn’t tellingly dim.

Not only is Scotland, PA—well acted by James Le Gros, Maura Tierney, and a few others—not a tragedy, it cannot even be called a tragicomedy.  Just a dark farce, with Morrisette completely indifferent to Shakespeare’s themes.  And it’s a slapdash dark farce at that.  Have a good time.