This article is about the 2001 film. For the community in Pennsylvania, see Scotland, Pennsylvania.
Scotland, PA
ScreenplayBilly Morrissette
Based onMacbeth
by William Shakespeare
StarringMaura Tierney
James LeGros
Christopher Walken
DirectorBilly Morrissette
ProducerRichard Shepard
Jonathan Stern
MusicAnton Sanko
CinematographyWally Pfister
EditingAdam Lichtenstein
DistributorLot 47 Films
ReleasedJanuary 22, 2001 (Sundance)
CountryUnited States
Runtime104 minutes
LanguageEnglish

Scotland, PA is a 2001 American bleak comedy crime film written and directed by Billy Morrissette as a modernized retelling of Macbeth.[1] The film stars James LeGros, Maura Tierney, and Christopher Walken. The Shakespearean tragedy, originally set in Dunsinane Castle in 11th-century Scotland, is reworked into a dark comedy set in 1975,[2] centered on "Duncan's Cafe", a fast-food restaurant in the small town of Scotland, Pennsylvania. The film was shot in Halifax, Nova Scotia.[3][4][5]

Plot

In 1975, Duncan's, a fast-food restaurant owned by Norm Duncan in the tiny hamlet of Scotland, Pennsylvania, hosts a variety of workers.[6][7] Joe “Mac” McBeth is passed over for a promotion to manager by Douglas McKenna, who has been embezzling the restaurant's money. Three stoned hippies, one a fortune teller, inform Mac that they see a bank drive-thru style restaurant in his future as management. Mac and his wife Pat then play informants on McKenna, and Duncan recognizes the value of Mac's efforts on behalf of the restaurant. Duncan shares with the McBeths his plans to turn his failing burger joint into a drive-thru, and Mac realizes how profitable the drive-thru could be, after which Duncan is hit in the head with a refrigerator door and passes out briefly. Pat then decides to murder Duncan in a staged robbery. Mac and Pat attack Duncan to acquire the combination to the restaurant's safe, and Mac assaults Duncan, but is distracted by a vision of the three hippies, allowing Duncan to fall head first into a deep fryer that splatters and burns Pat's hand. Investigator McDuff arrests a local homeless man, to whom Pat has given Duncan's jewelry, and the restaurant is willed to Duncan's eldest son, Malcolm. Malcolm sells the restaurant to the McBeths who immediately realize Mac's ideas, and the restaurant's business takes off.

Investigator McDuff returns to Scotland, where the homeless man is cleared, and the McBeths focus their attention on Malcolm. Banko, Mac's friend, questions why Mac had never mentioned the drive-thru concept. Mac grows withdrawn and paranoid and on a hunting trip contemplates killing off Banko, but a vision of the three hippies dressed as deer distracts him. Pat becomes obsessed with her burn injury and accuses people of staring at her repulsive-looking hand, though no scar is visible. Mac then kills Banko with the homeless man's gun, and the body is discovered while new celebrity Mac gives a press conference. Mac calls on an hallucination of Banko to ask a question at the press conference and loses his sanity as the town watches on TV. He then returns to the woods to look for the hippies while Pat becomes deluded into thinking her hand is falling off. Mac then completely loses his sanity, answering and talking on the phone when no one is on the other end. In one conversation, the hippies suggest he kill McDuff's family. Mac grabs the sheriff's gun and orders the officer to call McDuff to the restaurant, where he then shoots McDuff, but the gun proves to be empty. They then wrestle for the inspector's gun on the roof of the restaurant and both fall off. Mac is impaled on the horns of his car. Pat self-medicates with alcohol, but then cuts her hand off and bleeds to death. McDuff takes over the restaurant, fulfilling his dream of working with food.

Cast

Production

In South Windsor, Connecticut, his hometown, "I (Morrissette) was 16 and worked at Dairy Queen, and I hated my boss. I had read 'Macbeth' that same year and started telling people that this play would be hysterical if it took place in a fast food restaurant and everyone in the restaurant is named Mac".[8][9] Morrissette completed the script in 1998.[8]

Press kit

The press kit for the movie was printed in the form of a CliffsNotes booklet,[10] written by Professor David Linton of Marymount Manhattan College,[11] which is what Morrissette was reading when he was studying Shakespeare.

Music

The soundtrack is made up of Bad Company songs[12] because, in Morrissette's words, "the band's catalogue was surprisingly inexpensive".

Reception

The film holds a score of 59% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 73 reviews, as of May 2025. The consensus reads: "Though it's not as good as it could have been, Scotland, PA shows cleverness at utilizing its premise."[13]

Orlando Weekly called it "high-spirited", with "era-hopping giddiness"and "a rib-poking gambol".[14]

The New York Observer called it "a trailer-trash version of Macbeth that should be avoided like an Elizabethan pox" and "grubby low-budget sendup of 70s pop culture".[15]

Movieguide called it "a hilarious, modern re-telling of William Shakespeare's great tragic play" and a "morality tale".[16]

Salon called it "a one-note movie — the note being a smart-aleck adolescent's idea of a Shakespeare parody".[17]

SPLICEDwire called it "deliriously funny, fast and loose, accessible to the uninitiated, and full of surprises".[18]

Awards

The film was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival in 2001.

Adaptation

In 2019 it was announced that a musical adaptation would premiere Off-Broadway at the Laura Pels Theatre by Roundabout Theatre Company.[19][3] The musical, directed by Lonny Price, features book by Michael Mitnick, music and lyrics by Adam Gwon, and choreography by Josh Rhodes. It starred Ryan McCartan, Taylor Iman Jones, Megan Lawrence, Jay Armstrong Johnson, Jeb Brown, Lacretta, Will Meyers, Alysha Umphress, Kaleb Wells, and David Rossmer.[20]

Further reading

References

  1. ^ Kehr, Dave (8 February 2002). "AT THE MOVIES". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 February 2023.
  2. ^ Fedderson & Richardson 2008, pp. 311–313.
  3. ^ "An Interview with Michael Mitnick, Adam Gwon, and Billy Morrissette". roundabouttheatre. November 6, 2019. Retrieved 25 February 2023.
  4. ^ Druckenbrod, Andrew (March 8, 2002). "On Film: Highway 81 Revisited". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Archived from the original on February 25, 2023. Retrieved 25 February 2023. Morrissette captured the essence of Pennsylvania's Scotland and the surrounding area without even filming there. The movie was shot in Halifax, Nova Scotia, but it's such an accurate portrait that he surely must have stopped in Scotland at least once.
  5. ^ "Film and Industry Booming". Film Development News Releases. Nova Scotia. March 8, 2001. Retrieved 25 February 2023.
  6. ^ Bowman, James (February 7, 2002). "Scotland, PA". Ethics & Public Policy Center. Retrieved 25 February 2023.
  7. ^ Sasser, Tyler (12 January 2016). "Strode Shakespeare Film Series: Program Notes for 'Scotland, PA'". Nicholas Ryan Helms. Retrieved 25 February 2023.
  8. ^ Holmes, Emory (3 February 2002). "Toil and Trouble With Fries on the Side". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 25 February 2023.
  9. ^ Malanowski, Jamie (3 February 2002). "FILM; 'Macbeth,' Droll and Deep Fried". The New York Times. Retrieved 25 February 2023.
  10. ^ Ebert 2002.
  11. ^ Burt 2003, pp. 20–21.
  12. ^ Lehmann 2003, pp. 245–247.
  13. ^ "Scotland, PA". Rotten Tomatoes. Archived 9 May 2025 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 9 May 2025.
  14. ^ "Do fries go with that Shakespeare?". Orlando Weekly. March 7, 2002. Archived 25 February 2023 at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved 25 February 2023.
  15. ^ "Arnold Up Against Bruce". The New York Observer. 18 February 2002. Retrieved 25 February 2023. a trailer-trash version of Macbeth that should be avoided like an Elizabethan pox. Joe and Pat McBeth (James Le Gros and Maura Tierney) are a waitress and short-order cook in a greasy fast-food joint with ambitions to operate a traveling French-fry truck with chicken bits and dipping sauce. First they must murder Duncan, the owner, by frying him alive in deep fat. Not clever enough to be a satire and not creatively sound enough to be a viable revisionist drama, this grubby low-budget sendup of 70’s pop culture
  16. ^ "SCOTLAND, PA". Movieguide. 13 August 2012. Retrieved 25 February 2023.
  17. ^ Taylor, Charles (9 February 2002). ""Scotland, PA"". Salon.com. Retrieved 25 February 2023.
  18. ^ "'Scotland, PA' review (2002) Billy Morrissette, James LeGros, Christopher Walken, Maura Tierney". SPLICEDwire. 2003. Retrieved 25 February 2023.
  19. ^ Ross, Steve (26 October 2019). "He Says: Roundabout Gets Lost on its Way to Scotland, PA". Times Square Chronicles. Retrieved 25 February 2023.
  20. ^ "'Scotland, PA' 2001 Cult Film Set for off Broadway Musical Adaptation". May 9, 2019.
  21. ^ "Logos & Littera: Journal of Interdisciplinary Approaches to Text". www.ll.ac.me. Retrieved 25 February 2023. The journal was founded in 2013 by the Institute of Foreign Languages, University of Montenegro.

Sources