More accurately, YOUNG TOLKIEN. This exceedingly handsome, cunningly parsed bio-pic on the LORD OF THE RINGS author, didn’t connect with the vast audience for his writings & adaptations.* Their loss. The story, laid out in three parts (with some flashbacks & inter-cutting), begins as BOY TOLKIEN, an orphan with a knack for literature & languages on full scholarship at a ritzy boarding school, is toughing it out with wealthier lads till he finds a fellowship of artistic leaning chums. (All veddy, veddy British.) Then UNIVERSITY TOLKIEN, finding a voice thru profs/mentors and a late switch in academic studies. (Why it is always Oxford or Cambridge in these things?) Lastly, SOLDIER TOLKIEN, learning the worst of life’s journey, and losing half of the fellowship in the trenches at the Battle of Somme. Returning a wounded vet, now prepared to start a family & the great work. The usual way of handling these things is to cherry pick incidents that match up with favorite moments, characters or themes found in the books. Guilty as charged. But Finnish director Dome Karukosi (his first English-language film?) & writers David Gleeson/Stephen Beresford glance rather than pounce on the eureka moments, while believable period art direction & an exceptional cast (young fellowship members & the well-matched mature replacements) make sure we’re not just looking ahead but involved in the here & now. Nicholas Hoult, a gravely handsome Tolkien, and intellectual match, fellow orphan Lily Collins (looking like Jean Simmons in profile), supply warmth & charm. But the standout perf comes from Tolkien’s poet pal, Geoffrey Smith, played with uncanny attention to detail by Anthony Boyle. As much a stage as film actor, you need to go back to Stephen Rea in MICHAEL COLLINS/’96 or even Ralph Richardson in the 1939 version of THE FOUR FEATHERS to find its like. Warm and touching without being overly sentimental; something of a bromantic classic that its target audience missed.
DOUBLE-BILL: It’s what DEAD POETS SOCIETY/’89 thinks it’s up to.
SCREWY THOUGHT OF THE DAY: *A better poster might have helped. This French one the best of an anodyne lot.
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