In Paul Schrader’s movie on the 2023 movie schedule, Master Gardener, which serves as the third movie in his man in a chair trilogy, we are asked to think about acceptance and forgiveness. In the movie, Sigourney Weaver plays a rich woman who takes in a man who used to be a white nationalist and her niece who has found herself in some drug trouble. As the movie progressed I found myself wondering why her character took in these two people, and ultimately how her decisions led to her giving up some of her power. And for the legendary actress, she found some of her answers to those questions by going back to William Shakespeare’s play King Lear.
Over the course of Master Gardener, we see Ms. Haverhill go from a fairly giving, but selfish, property owner who takes in folks with troubled pasts to someone who aggressively kicks the two main characters out of her home. While talking to CinemaBlend about this shift in her character, and how she ultimately ends up giving her garden to the man she kicked out, Weaver noted how she went back to King Lear to understand her character’s final choice, saying:
