Tolkien

Tolkien: Not quite the romantic warrior professor but certainly all three of the preceding in part. Tolkien had a tough early life, falling into impecunity, his mother had to move with J.R.R. (Harry Gilby as the young Tolkien) and his brother from a rural idyll to the satanic mills and factories of Birmingham, an early model for Mordor no doubt. Then getting excessively MisLit, his mother (Laura Donnelly) dies and he is fostered by an elderly rich lady and along with his brother gets scholarships to an exclusive school. His family's benefactor, always working behind the scenes, is Father Morgan (Colm Meaney), benevelovent but steely in his determination when Tolkien's romance with Edith threatens his chances of getting an Oxford scholarship. Morgan may have been the inspiration for Gandalf.

At school Tolkien founds a Fellowship with other artistically minded students bur the Great War will wreak havoc on that brotherhood. The film cuts between Tolkien's earlier life and the trenches of the Somme. This is literally Hell, a real Mordor. The adult J.R.R .(Nicholas Hoult) is on a (perhaps allegorical) quest to the Front to find one of the Fellowship who is missing in action. He passes through mud holes full of bodies and fever stricken imagines that a german with a flamethrower is a dragon. The film suggests many inspirations for his books, Edith (Lily Collins) as an Elven Princess, his mother's reading tales of dragons when he was a boy, the War, his schooldays. A great influence on him was the philologist Professor Wright (Derek Jacobi) who won him over to the study of Old English and Gothic languages. Directed by Dome Karukoski from a screenplay by David Gleeson and Stephen Beresford, Tolkien is an engaging account of the earlier life of the scholar and author. 8/10

A story as romantic as biographical of the first three decades of J.R.R. Tolkien, who is best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion: his childhood and adolescence just before the first world war and his decisive encounters (Edith Bratt who will become his wife, the professor Joseph Wright who will turn his mentor and help him to to enter to the University of Oxford, and his friends with whom he will form a brotherhood, or even a fellowship). The analogies with his novels are obvious: the Ringwraiths a.k.a. the Nazgûl between the German trenches of the Bay of the Somme, or even Sauron on his black horse and his huge sword. The film portrays also the manifold sources of inspiration such as Nordic cultures / languages or operas like Der Ring des Nibelungen composed by Richard Wagner. The photography, the Computer-Generated Imagery and the costumes are excellent. The movie reflects reality more or less closely (the audience shall then dissociate the real from the fantasy) but is globally poetic. 6/7 of 10.

...because it represents more than a biopic. Because it gives a bitter - poetic portrait of familiar things. From friendship to bitter choices, from love to discover of vocation, from war to the most significant small things defining you. Because it is real well acted and has inspired script and propose a version of Tolkien ' s life more touching and precise than I expect. A film about war and passion and friendship and love , seductive for the game of nuances and for a sort of...magic. And, sure, Nicholas Hould seems the most wise option for the roles of real, real special writers.

The story and the excellent cinematography alone make for agood film. For some reason they forced in elements that had the effect of pandering to the weak minded. The film would have been much improved if these elements were left out.

It's enough to see a fellowship develop in the prep school and the visual scenes of WWI without CG of dragon silhouettes and ghosts in gas clouds. We audience members can make connections on our own and guess at what inspired him. I doubt he was thinking about dragons while seeing an actual flamethrower used in warfare.

The real story was in the details and they were good.

Tolkien recounts the defining people and moments of the author's life.

Since the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit movies interest has increased in Tolkien himself. While this film is no adventure it is both funny and touching as the subject evolves like one of the characters in his stories. This is interesting and I did enjoy it.

I'd have preferred it if the timeline had stretched a little bit further and covered more of his life than it does. The flash-forwards were well done up to that point.

I liked, 'Get off the lawn!'