I had heard about this play all my life, and so when it finally came out on DVD, I bought it. I wish I'd saved my money. This tale of incestuous longing, patterned after the Orestia Trilogy, must have been shocking in its day. But today the dialog seems ridiculous, the acting overblown, and the plot preposterous. Whether the Eugene O'Neill play is as bad, I can't say. There are a lot of ways the movie fails as a movie. Chapter titles. Highlighted close-ups like those in a silent film. Static camera. But the plot also doesn't work, because the murder and incest are motivated by an old man unable to satisfy a young wife -- a far cry from Agamemnon's sacrifice of his daughter that motivates Clytemnestra's revenge. It's soap opera, and not very good soap.
Review of Mourning Becomes Electra
