Kevin Maher on how his university magazine made his career

By Patrick Sullivan, Co-Editor in Chief

The Times' Chief Film Critic travelled down to Bristol to speak to Epigram Film & TV writers about how he has established his career in film criticism and the modern challenges of the profession.

I met Kevin in October 2018 at the London Film Festival. As one of the few full time film critics left, his schedule was understandably packed and it took us until March to arrange a date for this interview. Based in The Times’ London office Monday to Thursday, Kevin watches and reviews all the new films for the week, regularly working from 7am to 1am.

Kevin graduated from University College Dublin in 1994 with an MA in Film and by 2002, had worked his way up to The Times, where he has since been appointed Chief Film Critic. The last decade in particular has seen Kevin become regarded as one of the UK’s sharpest voices in film criticism. He’s interviewed a vast majority of the world’s finest filmmakers, yet he still cites his experience in student journalism and early magazine opportunities as a key entry point into the profession.

‘The thing that saved my life is that I wrote for a university magazine and it was published in a glossy edition. I met some friends from London [who also did the MA in Dublin] and that’s why I came over. [Those three articles were] all I had in terms of ammo.

‘I remember going to W H Smiths, buying £60 worth of magazines and I just blitzed every commissioning editor with a photocopy of my student articles. I must have sent off 20 or 30 letters and one got back: an MTV produced publication called Blah Blah Blah.

‘The phone went and it was the editor, he said, “I need 50 words on this new film.” I had to run to the newsagent to get it faxed. I wrote more for Blah Blah Blah: some bigger film reviews, a couple of features. From there, I went on to write for The Face.

‘The Face was amazing: writing for them was like a passport I could just phone newspaper editors and say, “It’s Kevin from The Face,” and they’d go, “What is it?” and you’d pitch them an idea. In terms of my professional biography, take out The Face and it’d have been a bit shaky.

'The thing that saved my life is that I wrote for a university magazine and it was published'

‘In 2001, I took just over a year off and went to live just north of the Moray Firth in Scotland, having had my first kid. After that, I lived for about four months in Somerset and then eventually ran out of cash and the dream of leaving the metropolitan nightmare actually turned out to be limiting.

‘The first week I was back in London I phoned the Arts Editor of The Times, who’s still there now, and said, “Hi, it’s Kevin from The Face,” and boom, I haven’t stopped writing for The Times since.

‘It’s funny, in retrospect, I think it was those initial student articles and The Face which were the passport and these key stepping stones. It made writing for The Times relatively straightforward.’

Since being appointed at The Times, Kevin has continued to slap his opinion down on the table with his work, often berating a universally well-received film or praising one which is being slated. He believes being truthful to yourself is an important trait for all young writers to maintain, whether injecting yourself into columns, reviews, or other forms of writing.

‘I feel very lucky to have such a nice balance. It’s all writing and the fundamental thing you’re doing is just trying to be honest. Being truthful can be very hard in film criticism because there’s so much pressure.

‘Firstly, you’ll notice I don’t sit with other critics but completely on my own. We do these first night reviews, and everyone rushes out to a cafe and they’re all vibing off each other when it should be a very personal thing. Invariably, you pick up the papers and everybody’s got a three star review or thereabouts. That’s to be avoided because it really interferes with your writing. The other thing is the marketing tsunami that you’re faced with, especially the big Hollywood movies.

‘All these low level stresses try to interfere with this very simple thing where you go to have a relationship with a piece of art. You don’t expect that. You’re like, “Being a film reviewer must be really cool, you get to go and watch films,” whereas it’d be amazing if you just had to watch the film and didn’t have to deal with the PRs and the expectations of peers.

'The fundamental thing you’re doing is just trying to be honest'

In an era of cinema where big blockbusters are dominated by comic book adaptations and streaming services, I find it compelling how Kevin views the current market with far less panic than other commentators.

‘2018 was the most successful year at the US box office on record, with over $11 billion. People are going to the cinema like never seen before. They’re mostly going to see franchise blockbusters, but that’s a virtuous circle as the money goes everywhere.

‘I’ve been writing about films since ‘94, professionally since ‘95, and there’s been so many periods where people are like, “Oh my God, everyone’s stopping going to the cinema.” Dogma, Soderbergh making a film on a digital camera, films going straight to DVD, they said people will never go to the cinema then but that was rubbish as well.

‘This feels like it’s a boom time for cinema. I report on independent cinemas and Curzon are thriving. As multiplexes get more multiplex-y and blockbusters get more blockbuster-y, arthouse cinemas are salvation places for people with an interesting pallette.’

Funding independent British movies, however, is increasingly tough. Still, Kevin highlights Carol Morley and Joanna Hogg as the two best upcoming British filmmakers, as well as Lynne Ramsay for continuing to produce outstanding work.

'This feels like it’s a boom time for cinema'

‘To me, the interesting work is being done by women. I had a discussion with Morley about this a couple of weeks ago [in March]. I was trying to be honest and say, “I’m not super PC, I’m not Mr Woke, I’m left and I’m right on loads of issues,” but it just seems obvious to me films directed by British women are far more interesting.

‘Morley’s argument was that what you’re seeing [in the films] is not an essential female perspective; you’re just seeing the work of someone who’s working really fucking hard ... to get everything. I think she’s got a point.

‘When you watch You Were Never Really Here (2017, dir. Ramsay), that’s not a lazy film. It’s a film that’s been really thought about. There’s nothing in that films that seems: “Okay, let’s do a wide shot, then a close up, then let’s go to the hammer.” I thought the same about Hogg’s latest film, The Souvenir (2019). It was amazing! I thought Berlin was awful this year, but I think of the triumvirate of Ramsay, Morley, Hogg and I can’t think of any exciting young male [British] filmmakers like that.’

'It just seems obvious to me films directed by British women are far more interesting'

For anyone studying film, it was during his degree when Kevin developed his critical eye and started to understand the true impact of cinema within culture. He credits his Masters as one of the separating factors from a lot of other critics.

‘Throughout the MA, I felt there wasn’t one angle of attack in studies that hadn’t been covered. It opened my eyes to films like The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920), The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), films that were amazing and realising it is a language. It was like some sort of satanic cult where you suddenly got all the right prayers. There is this dense and complex way of looking at films and how they interpenetrate with the cultural relevance. By the time you’re 18, you’ve seen the American canon, Citizen Kane (1941) etc, so the exciting thing about university studies is you have to fill in the blanks.’

Despite all the verve and intellect he has surrounding the subject of film, Kevin didn’t always want to be a critic and instead set his eye on being the artist receiving the reviews himself. In 2013, the first of his two novels, The Fields was released to rapturous reviews and Kevin saw a new path to the career he always sought.

‘There was a low level bidding war in 2012 and I was like, “Wahoo, I’m out of this bullshit film criticism and I can finally be who I want to be artistically!” But it was a huge flop and, because of that, I’m not going to diss being a film critic.

‘There’s a brilliant quote from a New Yorker critic who says, “Anybody who’s a journalist can’t do the job without knowing how ridiculous it is.” I feel that times a million for film criticism. I feel half the time I can be really engaged culturally through the screen - but fundamentally you’re sitting in the dark doing nothing.

‘It’s also marginally parasitical; you’re sitting behind really creative people (sometimes not) and you’re trying to see what they’re doing and commenting. If you’ve got a single creative bone in your body, you think, “Shouldn’t I be doing something more like that?” Still, it has way more interesting things about it than the nagging sensation that you are picking on a dead carcass.’

I think I speak for all Times readers when I say that whatever medium Kevin writes in, it’s not going to be boring.

Featured image: Epigram / Patrick Sullivan

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