Movie Review: Rachel Weisz Stars in Agora

*Agora opens next Friday in New York with a possible wider release later. It played throughout Europe last year becoming the biggest box office success on the Continent in 2009. It also won 7 Goya Awards (The Spanish equivalent of The Oscars) and was nominated for 6 others.

It’s said that one of the most difficult things to present on screen is the process of writing. Of all the arts it is the least visually kinetic and generally either a bore to watch or otherwise presented unrealistically. Well I can now say with certainty that there is another art form even more boring in its screen presentation: that of the ancient mathematician philosopher.

This is rather unfortunately what Alejandro Amenábar (director of the wonderful assisted suicide drama The Sea Inside and the haunting The Others) has attempted to do with Agora, the story of Hypatia (Rachel Weisz, trying her best to make the most of weak material), a brilliant female mind and university teacher caught in the center of a man’s world and the tumultuous time when the Roman Empire was succumbing to the forces of Christianity.


Hypatia was a little known mathematician philosopher living at the end of the 4th century in Alexandria while it was still under the auspices of the Roman Empire. In its final death throes, the Empire had already decreed that Christianity could exist as an organized religion.

This brings about a catastrophic revolution after a group of Christian demonstrators defile a Roman deity. The Romans, unable to abide a blasphemy so severe and foolishly believing themselves the stronger side, begin a bloody altercation in the center of the city. Being outnumbered they are forced to take refuge in the great library where all history’s great works and knowledge to that point are kept.

After the Emperor declares that the Romans shall be given safe passage out of the library, it falls on Hypatia and her students to salvage as many books (scrolls really) as they can. The Christians overrun the complex and destroy everything providing themselves the opportunity to re-write history in their own image.

During this sequence, Davus (Max Minghella), a slave boy from Hypatia’s family takes the blame for a transgression that was not his own and endures a whipping from Hypatia’s father, Theon. Hypatia takes pity on him, showing him mercy. Davus, already infatuated with her, will remember this moment many years later.

Flash forward several years. Most Romans have accepted Christ and been baptized in the interest of keeping the peace. Hypatia continues her pursuit of the secrets of the cosmos while providing guidance to Orestes, her former student and now prefect of the city.

Religious conflict has not ceased but been replaced by a new one between Christians and Jews, all the while attempting to rid the city of the last remaining pagans. Through all this, Hypatia will furiously attempt, against the march of time and her own fate, to find the answer to why there are so many peculiarities with the Ptolemaic view of the universe.

It is embarrassing to watch an actress of Weisz’s caliber attempting to bring excitement and immediacy to monologue scenes of her trying to unlock mathematical puzzles. What is an actor to do with such banal and awkward writing?

Surely part of Amenábar’s point is to illustrate how this conflict is not much different to religious strife taking place on the planet today. There are several obvious parallels to the ongoing conflicts with radical Islam, but he seems much more concerned with the role of a woman in such a world.

That’s fine, I suppose, but it’s awfully dull. He’s working in the historical period at which ancient antiquity ended and the Middle Ages began. Surely there’s a much more interesting story to be told in portraying the rise of Christianity as a dominant force despite being at one time despised by the majority religions of the day. He briefly touches on the notion of Christian forgiveness and there’s an interesting twist at work with Hypatia (herself refusing to acknowledge anything but the existence of science and logic) showing mercy for Davus. He soon converts to Christianity (which takes him in at a moment of weakness) and eventually has the chance to be merciful toward her in return. The choices made in the final moments are interesting. And I think a much better film lurks somewhere in the shadow of those choices

At the end of the day, Amenábar should be applauded for even attempting a work of such grand scope without resorting to Hollywood cliché. Unfortunately, his resulting film feels forced and often a little too proud of itself.