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Brownie points to Netflix for sponsoring this movie, which must have only limited appeal even to older gay viewers. Jack Lowden stars as World War One poet Siegfried Sassoon (Jack Lowden), whose emotional and sexual life director Terence Davies explores in this gloomy biopic. After publishing a letter condemning the military chiefs for the appalling death toll the conflict has brought, Sassoon is lucky not to be shot as a traitor; they send him to a mental institution where he meets and falls in love with fellow poet Wilfred Owen who's suffering from shell-shock (as PTSD was called in those dark days). Owen is sent back to die in Picardy in the last week of the war. The screenplay skates past Sassoon's brief return to active service.

After the war Siegfried has a brief affair with Ivor Novello (Jeremy Irvine), shown here as the uber-bitch in London's far-from-discreet gay set. Siegfried has a longer but equally unhappy affair with upper-crust socialite Stephen Tennant (Calam Lynch), the model for Sebastian Flyte in Evelyn Waugh's BRIDESHEAD REVISITED. Unhappy with homosexual life and converting to Catholicism, Sassoon marries. Flash-forward to his later life shows Sassoon (now played by Peter Capaldi) at odds with his wife and their son.

Throughout the movie Davies inserts horrific glimpses of battle casualties which never cease to haunt Sassoon. His poems are voice-overed from time to time, although two poems of Owen's make it clear that Sassoon was somewhat Second Division in comparison.

This is a beautifully shot movie, and all the cast perfectly evoke the look and feel of the 1920s and 30s, but the scriptwriter's prevailing tone is depressing. Male lovers and a wife all fail to bring happiness to Siegfried Sassoon. A life unfulfilled; a glum movie.

My Review- Benediction

My Score 7/10

I always find something to enjoy in a Terence Davies film but often come away thinking that his screenplays and Direction tell us more about Terence Davies than they do about the subject of his story .

The subject in this movie is Siegfried Loraine Sassoon CBE who was born on September 8th 1886 . He was a famous English war poet, writer, and soldier who was decorated for bravery on the Western Front and became one of the leading poets of the First World War.

I was surprised to read that Terence Davies the writer and Director of Benediction has only made feature 24 films . Three of those are biographical and known as the Terence Davies Trilogy Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988), The Long Day Closes (1992) and the collage film Of Time and the City (2008) a nostalgic look at his birthplace city Liverpool U. K. In 2000 Terence Davies Directed and wrote the screenplay for his movie adaptation of The House of Mirth the 1905 novel by American author Edith Wharton.

After seeing Benediction Terence David's most recent movie I looked back on my previous review of his last feature film "A Quiet Passion " (2016) about the life of Emily Dickinson the famous American poet . I was interested to see that I felt similarly about that movie as do about "Benediction." a quote from my review- of A Quiet Passion ."

A bleak film written and directed by Terence Davies I thought though at times it's very beautiful that it would have been more balanced if he had shown less suffering and more of the joyful influences that inspired her poetry . I doubt her life was all despair and angst, perhaps it says more about Terence Davies than Emily Dickinson.

After seeing Benediction I read that Terence Davies has said I don't like being gay. It has ruined my life. I am celibate, although I think I would have been celibate even if I was straight because I'm not good-looking; why would anyone be interested in me? And nobody has been. Work was my substitute.

I think I understand all his films a little better after reading that as they all have a poetic undertone of sadness and regret while still at the same time especially in Benediction display the gift of panache and sophistication that many older Gay men ,especially in the film and television industry possess .

Benediction traces the life of the famous English poet Siegfried Sassoon CBE who was a brave and decorated First World War hero who won the Military Cross then left the Army and in 1917 .

Sassoon wrote his "Soldiers Declaration."in which he described the horrors of the trenches and satirised the pretensions of those responsible in his view that promoted a jingoistic-fuelled war.

This of course outraged the British Parliament and the Army Chiefs and resulted in Siegfried Sassoon being sent to a War Hospital in Edinburgh where he was treated for shell shock.

Jack Lowdon a Scottish actor who was so good in Dunkirk as an RAF fighter pilot is very impressive as the young and charming Siegfried Sassoon .

Siegfried has a number of affairs with male lovers including the famous and handsome actor composer Ivor Novello and later a very interesting affair with German Prince Philipp of Hesse which oddly is not mentioned in this story?

I wondered why after reading more about Siegfried's affairs that stated the two men exchanged love letters after meeting in Rome in 1922. The affair ended apparently due to Prince Phillipp of Hesse's promiscuity but in Sassoon's diary he wrote "I am the only one of P's regular succession of affairs " A biographical movie of course can't tell the whole story and we do get a glimpse of the elegant and sophisticated literary and art circles that Siegfried Sassoon and his friends frequented . However I found out much more about Siegfried Sassoon after seeing the movie Benediction than before.

The apparent sadness of Siegfried Sassoon's later life is portrayed by Peter Capaldi as the aged and bitter Siegfried who after marrying Hester Gatty in 1933 ( in reality 2O years his junior) rages at his son and friends this to me seemed at odds with his younger self. Perhaps I'm reading more into it but I wondered if Terence Davies was transferring some of his own regret about his own sexuality into the character by depicting a sad closeted existence?.

The elder Hester is played by the wonderful Gemma Jones and she also is a reflection of a sad marriage .

These facts about Siegfried Sassoon's last years depicted in Terence Davies film are at odds with the truth as Siegfried and Hester separated in 1945 after 12 years of marriage when Siegfried was unable to find a compromise between the "companionship " and solitude he craved.

Their son George Sassoon( 1936 -2006) became a scientist and linguist ,and author and was adored by Siegfried,who wrote several poems addressed to his son.

This information just made me think while this movie is well crafted and interesting that it's missing the true character of its subject Siegfried Sassoon.

Here's a lot of old fashioned Britishness we love. Repressed emotions hidden behind immaculate manner and only expressed through biting witty comments and classy bitching. But having partially lived in and experienced modern UK (or let's just say London, that is a world of its own) for over a decade now, it's the world that's almost gone... unless for such rare moments brought back by the dying breed as Terence Davies.

In that sense, the whole film is definitely sentimental, nostalgic... and gently bitter (as oppose to bitter sweet). Even the scenes of horror from WW1 are somewhat veiled with distinctively old fashioned verses of Siegfried Sassoon. For some reason most scenes with special effects (the scene where Siegfried dropping his medal being most noteworthy) feel so dated too, as in 90's film or a student project of SiFi.

My biggest issue in enjoying the film was that I gradually lost empathy with Siegfried. He starts off as gentle, smart young man, restrained but with lucid enough self-awareness and noble idealism of a youth. Then he dips in relationships with pretty but frivolous guys, predictably gets hurt by them, and then opts for a more conventional life of marriage and child in the selfish hope that the wife and son may give him the light he craves for. And then he ends up a bitter, distant, irritable and irritating old man, who vents out to his poor wife and suffering son, practically the only people left around, for their failure to become the light he wanted them to be.

Now, it's not entirely his fault alone. The horror of the war that scarred him for life and the intolerant society that kept him from acting upon his true love have a lot to answer for. Even his shallow, egoistic post-war lovers are largely because such bold 'crazy' ones were the only people who could live somewhat openly as gay in the repressive British society.

Nevertheless Siegfried had so many privileges - his uppercrust background, artistic talent, social recognition, and few but supportive friends. Despite of it all, he makes choices against his own truth and heart, and ends up a bitter resentful old man. His last ditch attempt to God wouldn't give him the solace he craves for.

I guess that is actually the message of the film - how giving up one's true heart and truth, whether by one's own will or circumstances, can leave one just a shell of oneself. And what's the worth of a poet when he can't speak his truth?

Overall it left me somewhat unsatisfied after 2 hours of run despite of its many enjoyable and charming virtues. I suspect Terence Davies himself has never quite overcome the pessimistic view he manifested in his early trilogy.

Benediction.

This long film is possibly better suited for TV viewing, so for UK viewers I expect to see it on BBC TV because BBC-Films was one of the funding sources. Despite that, I'm pleased to have seen it at the almost empty cinema if only for the better focus there with no distractions of home.

I liked this more than I was expecting, which possibly says more about me than the film.

It's a surprise to me that this film got made, especially in these pandemic times, as it is quite indulgent, languid and would appeal to a possibly limited segment of cinema goers.

It is not a biography of Sassoon, as there's no mention of his father, his father's early death, the bequest from his aunt, or Heytesbury, or his death etc.

Instead it is an absorbing slightly mesmeric collage of catty dialogue, music, poetry and grainy WW1 footage and still photography artfully assembled into a tale of searching for redemption and the angst for help to deal with the past, which presumably explains the title.

The initial early transition between actors (young Siegfried and old Siegfried) could have been better handled as at least one later transition of another character was clearly done. Peter Capaldi is fabulously haunted in the role of old Siegfried, though with a clipped accent to mask the rich Scottish tones underneath. The always watchable Geraldine James appears briefly as mother.

Jeremy Irvine is devilish as Ivor Novello. Calam Lynch is acidic as young Stephen Tennant. Jack Lowden is reasonable as young Siegfried.

The first of the song choices seemed anachronistic, as the backing for grainy WW-1 footage. But this is a minor detail.

Overall: best for TV maybe, 7/10.

"Many live for the moment, you live for the eternity" British poet Siegfried Sassoon's son to his father in his final days--as the poet continues to bemoan the dead soldiers of of WWI who died for a cause that had changed from what it was when they enlisted. Thanks to Terrence Davies' film I have come to appreciate Sassoon's poetry. As a film, I prefer the comparable film "Under Milkwood" on the life and poetry of Dylan Thomas. A trivial highlight of the film: T E Lawrence (a.k.a. Lawrence of Arabia) attending the very private wedding of Sassoon! Though mentioned briefly as an admirer of the poet Sassoon, Noel Coward never gets shown in the film. Some aspects of the screenplay are very impressive, while some are not (switching back and forth in time, needlessly, those relating to one of Sassoon's many gay paramours).

Ignore the naysayers. This is a beautiful, deeply sad, elegant, and poetic film from one of the greatest filmmakers working today, Terence Davies. Many here are dismissing this film as "catty", "stereotypical", etc. It's not in the least. It's a film based on the life of Siegfried Sassoon, a real UK poet who served in WW1 with Wilfred Owen, the brilliant soldier who wrote the poetry that was the basis for Benjamin Britten's magnificent War Requiem and who was a friend/lover of Sassoon. Sasson was a poet himself, an artist, and like all artists, felt alienated throughout his life from the world he lived in. We see that art world from behind the curtain, and anyone who has ever worked, or been privvy to, the behind the scenes of the artistic world will attest this is how it is. This is the huge source of Sassoon's "alienation", not just that he's a homosexual, which many reviewers are insisting. There's a wonderful line that sums him up perfectly, and that is "most people live in the moment. You want to live in eternity". That's a beautiful, poetic summation not only of Sassoon's life, but of art in general. Davies's films often draw on art for their inspiration, and this one is no exception.

All of the performances are 1st rate, the cinematography is exquisite, the production design is breath taking, and the dialogue is some of the best I've heard in a film in a very, very long time. Thanks to Mr. Terence Davies for making such an extraordinary movie.

A slow, stately biopic about poet Siegried Sassoon and the demons that plagued him after serving in WWI.

The movie has serious Evelyn Waugh vibes, especially "Brideshead Revisited." WWI stories always fascinate me, especially when they're about how much the war screwed up the psyches of the people who were caught up in it. This film is overall satisfying, if a bit repetitive. A huge amount of time is spent on Sassoon, a more or less openly gay man, and his various love affairs, all with caricatures of flamboyant, bitchy gay men and all of them leaving you wondering what he wanted to be around them for in the first place. Seriously, were all gay men this hateful in the 1920s? But then you think about how marginalized they were, and the answer is, well, yeah, maybe they were. They had a lot to be hateful about.

The one reason to see this movie is a big one, and that's the central performance of Jack Lowden. He's magnificent in this. Easily award worthy, though a group like the Academy Awards wouldn't recognize him in a million years.

Grade: A-

Any film that has the slightest gay content is going to bring the bigots out of the wood work, whether the psycho intellectuals or the simply thugs. Hence the courage of Netflix and any actor who subsequently takes on the job has to be admired. Especially with the reach of social media these days. This is also a gritty and sometime uncomfortable watch and so it should be. Soldiers challenging the status quo, especially in English elites who conspired to start he war and then managed it so badly. The elites & sub aristocrats were also rewarded for the slaughter and agony they caused, and for accelerating the British Empires decline in the process. A parody of the last ten years on that island, which has at last finished it off. Of course they were proved right but now their words are used in far right 'nationalistic' rants and the anti-war anti-fascist meanings have been patriot washed.

Had expectations for this but not fulfilled - too many long drawn out pauses meant the film never had a heartbeat. Good (but not great) performances - and mixed up sequences that didn't make sense...

My initial reaction was, "unfocused and messy," but someone else called it a collage, and I think that is a more accurate description of the film.

It's not a biography, it's not really about war, or love, or living a closeted life during a specific period in UK history; it's not about aging; it's not about poetry, or trauma. The title suggests it might be about guidance, blessing, or redemption, but in regard to what, I can't really say.

It's also about all of those things, depending on the minute. The movie changes focus quite a few times, and I found that incredibly frustrating. After two and a half hours, I did not leave with any firmed-up impression of Sassoon, or the basic intention of the film.

Having said that, the lead actor and the rest are all perfectly enjoyable to watch, the dialogue is organic, and aside from spliced-in war footage, it is pleasing to the eye. It's a good choice for watching on demand or otherwise at home. But it's not a movie that lingers.

I'll be writing a review for Art Report Today so I just wanted to say: this is the best film of the year so far and Davies' finest achievement. Bring the tissues, it's a weeper. And the acting is sublime.

A very well executed portrayal of the elitist culture of British high society in the aftermath of WWI on technical and artistic levels. However, through the austere use of language, sets and locations, I can't help but hold a taste more bitter than what the poetry illustrated with archival film clips so helplessly try to foil against the pompous stereotypes that films about the élite unconsciously celebrate. I think that there is a disservice done to the remembrance of the "Great War" (this adage itself being rife with contradiction) when viewed through the lives of the idle rich who had nought to do but pursue their "hobbies".

Asking the audience to relate to high society Britain in the context of what war means to them who profited most by it trivializes the true cost of war for the vast majority. This trivializing is only reflected in the exposition of the relationships of characters and how little they value one another, using each other for selfish gain.

This is a purposely sad film made sadder by the truth that runs underneath, never given the light it deserves for the sake of retaining the characters' perilous reputations and pretentious stations in life.

This is a film there would have been no chance of me watching under normal circumstances - I'm expecting bucketloads of typically English, buttoned-down repression. I'm sure it will be well acted and look fantastically vintage, but, for me, will prove to be a struggle to engage with.

And yeah, that's pretty much where we are. We follow Siegfried from his war years to old age and, to be fair, it is an interesting enough story here - the man lived a full life! He fought incredibly bravely during World War I, but declined to return after a period of convalescence, taking a stand by writing "A Soldiier's Declaration" which was read out in the Houses of Parliament. Rather than being court-martialled, he was sent to a military hospital (where he met Wilfred Owen) and, after some time, returned to the front line in France - where he was shot in the head in a friendly fire incident, which somewhat ended his war effort.

Which just enabled him to spend more time writing and sleeping with men including Ivor Novello, a German prince and Stephen Tennant, a socialite who has a fascinating Wikipedia entry (he's popularly believed to have spent the last 17 years of his life in bed). After he'd got that out of the way, he got married, had a son, got divorced and late in life, converted to Catholicism. Whilst all the while being incredibly bitter about everything. So there's plenty to tell us - but it's actually incredibly tricky to follow because the timeline jumps all over the place. Without, as far as I could see, adding anything to the telling - a mostly linear depiction would have worked just as well for me.

And.

There. Are. Interminable.

Pauses. Everywhere.

And lots of looking into the middle distance as well. But that's nothing compared to the levels of repression in there. You name it, and it's repressed in this film. Anger, pain, homosexuality, love - there's probably even repressed repression if you look hard enough. And it goes on for 137 minutes - which I'm afraid is far too long for the likes of me.

It is well acted though - Siegfried is played by Jack Lowden and Peter Capaldi, Stephen Tennant by Calam Lynch and Anton Lesser and Hester Gatty (Siegfried's wife) by Kate Phillips and Gemma Jones (her third appearance in a Guardian film recommendation we've met) and they all do a good job of acting appropriately for their timeline. Jeremy Irvine puts in a good turn as Ivor Novello, it's always nice to see Geraldine James in anything and it was a bit sad to see Julian Sands in what is probably one of his last roles.

It's also, as expected, very good looking - no effort has been spared in ensuring the authenticity of every aspect. Probably so anyway - because, let's face it, it could be a million miles off and I'd never know. And everyone also feels like they're behaving in the way you'd expect them to, which I guess is a credit to the director but, for me, a letdown - I feared things would turn out that way and so it turned out.

So, all in all - this isn't one for me. If you like a nice wartime poet biopic with lashings of angst then it's definitely one for you, but I found it to be just too slow. At time of writing, it's available to watch on Netflix - if it sounds like your sort of thing then it definitely will be, so check it out there.

Jack Lowden plays decorated WWI soldier / war poet Siegfried Sassoon who refuses to return to the front, heavily critical of the motives for continuing to fight. He is helped in avoiding a court martial by being hospitalised so his confusion can be cured.

A glorious study of a man who reflects on his uncomfortable life and the poor choices he made. Plagued by guilt at not being in the fight, his life progresses through his analysis and his openly gay relationships and ultimately how he moves into old age, played by Peter Capaldi looking back and his relative failures.

Interestingly the largest part of what is essentially an anti war film focusses on Sassoon's failures with his gay relationship, riddled entirely with long scenes of acid oneupmanship seeing who can outwit each other with increasingly snide bitchiness - to me this went on too long and for no obvious reason. The performances by a terrific British cast are universally excellent with Lowden holding his own in the lead, right up to a very touching final scene. Overall, well acted and really quite moving.

"Too often mired in petty quarrels and emotional limbos, Sassoon the poet eventually emerges as an opaque figure whose personality seems to be stunted by his wartime experience and the physical deterioration from Lowden to Capaldi, who plays an elderly Sassoon saddled with his insipid son George (Goulding), is too much to credit, Capaldi's gaunt, sourpuss persona is a bad casting decision. Lowden, though merely 3 years after Josie Rourke's MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS (2018), it seems the bloom is off the rose already, is unable to ignite the screen but soldiers on with stamina, his best scenes are with a delicately wistful Geraldine James, who plays Sassoon's mother, faintly apprehensive of her son's entanglement with his "pretty boys"."

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Beautifully filmed,expertly directed and the acting sublime.alost generation and a loss of one's self,in an age when love that dare not speaks its name was reviled.the interaction of the poetry and film is used to great effect.on a lighter note some of the acidic one liners would have made lady Grantham wince.

The oeuvre of Terence Davies is very diverse. He started wit some autobiographical films ("Distant voices, still lives" (1988) and "The long day closes" (1992)). Thereafter he made some adaptations of existing literature. His last two movies are biographies of two poets. "A quiet passion" (2016) is about the American poet Emily Dickinson and "Benediction"(2021) is about the English poet Siegfried Sassoon. The main characters in these movies being lesbian and homosexual respectively, the films are also biographical in disguise.

After watching "Benediction" I was amazed. What a beautiful film! It really is a shame that a film such as "Benediction" did not even enter circulation in the Netherlands. Not in commercial cinema's nor in arthouses.

Taking a poet as his lead character Davies was able to turn "Benediction" into a brilliant mixture of film, documentary, poetry and music. If any film deserves to be called a "Gesamtkunstwerk" (to use this Wagnerian phrase) it is "Benediction".

"Benediction" has two storylines. One about Siegfried Sassoon the homosexual and one about the influence of the First World War on Sassoon.

The influence of the First World War on Sassoon was for me the most interesting storyline. Sassoon, a decorated hero, refuses to go back to the front. He wants to explain his motives for a military tribinal, even if that means risking the death penalty. He is disappointed when his family has him admitted in a mental military hospital. In his view they have deprived him of officially making his case. Sassoon survives the First World War but it is clear that the emotional damage is permanent. This is illustrated by the use of documentary stills that can also be interpreted as the nightmares of Sassoon.

The film is not told in chronological order but jumps back and forth between different ages. This way of presenting the story enhances the impact. It made me think of the story telling technique the Polish writer Wieslaw Mysliwski uses in many of his novels. The visualization of the age transformations was in my opinion a little bit primitive for the present state of technique. They were not much better than the transformations of Dr Jekyll intp Mr Hyde in the 1931 (Rouben Mamoulian) or 1941 (Victor Fleming) movies.

"Benediction" refers to the last prayer for guidance and divine help in a Christian worship service. In this film the title indicates that Siefried Sassoon has not come to terms with his First World War experiences, even at old age. This is brilliantly illustrated by the last scene of the movie. In this scene we hear a poem by Wilfred Owen (a former lover of Siegfried Sassoon) about an injured soldier. It describes how this soldier is deprived of a normal life. During the recitation of this poem we see images of boys and girls flirting with each other, the injured soldier sitting in a wheelchair and Siegfried Sassoon sitting on a bank in a park. The flirting girls and boys represent of course normal life. The one deprived of this normal life is not only the injured soldier (physical damage) but also Siegfried Sassoon (emotional damage). This scene had a huge impact on me. I can only think of one other scene that touched me just as much. It is from the film "The conversation" (1974, Francis Ford Coppola). One of the main characters of this film comments on a beggar in a park. "I think he was once somebody's baby boy, and he had a mother and a father who loved him, and now there he is, half dead on a park bench, and where are his mother or his father, all his uncles now?".

The last couple of years have seen a couple of films about the First World War. "The shall not grow old" (2018, Peter Jackson), "1917" (2019, Sam Mendes) and "In Westen nichts neues" (2022, Edward Berger), the last one being a remake of "All quiet on the Western front" (1930, Lewis Milestone). "Benediction" surpasses them all.

I know it's about the main character, but the film jumps around so much that it makes it difficult to keep interest. Is it a war movie? Is it a romance film? Is it an aristocratic drama? I could not tell you because it seems to be all these things in different intervals throughout the film, and unfortunately, none of them mingle with eachother cohesively enough to blend together. There is a great film in there, it just needed more editing and a better focal point for the story. The acting is all fantastic, however the director seems to indulge in their facial expressions a bit too much. Seriously, the ending did not need a steady 5 minute shot of the main character. I get you're trying to convey the anguish he feels, but the audience already got that throughout the film. It also didn't help that the film has a serious pacing issue that makes it drag. I could recommend to the lgbt crowd, and fans of dry dramas, but in no way is this the good film it could've been. 2 affairs out of 5.

A few years ago I read the authoritative and excellent biography of Siegfried Sassoon by Jean Moorcroft Wilson. It is quite clear to me having watched this film that the writer and cast have probably never been further than a Wikipedia entry in understanding the man. I get it that Sassoon was a homosexual, indeed Moorcroft Wilson explores this in her biography but it is far from the most defining aspect of his life. I get it, that this film is worship at the altar of LBGTQ+ history but this is at the expense of learning some interesting, almost incredible, facts about Siegfried Sassoon.

For example, what of his life as a 'fox hunting' man? What of the extraordinary coincidence of both Sassoon and Robert Graves (who barely gets a mention) serving together in the Welsh Fusiliers at the Somme and of their important friendship (Sassoon supported Graves financially several times after the war)? Or his equally important friendship with T E Lawrence (a truly remarkable man who is delegated in the film to a bit part of Sassoon's wedding)? Yes, we see some of his relationship with Wilfred Owen but we do not learn that Graves, Owen and Sassoon were all at Craiglockhart at the same time - Graves despatched there to try and persuade his friend Sassoon to drop his opposition to the war.

We do not learn that Sassoon was known as 'Mad Jack' to his contemporaries on the Western Front and his bravura included leading trench raids despite confessing to being terrified at doing so.

We do not even learn the origins of his extraordinary name, or why in the casting his mother doesn't share his last name.

My greatest sadness is that there is a definite need for a truly authoritative biopic (if I can use that word) of Sassoon and this not it. Yes, if you want to wallow in the calumny of how gay men were treated until recently, this is it. Burn with indignation, if you must. Clearly the writer and director had only one thesis in this film and all 2+ hours of it are imbued with it.

But what a waste of a non-gay actor (think about the hypocrisy of the casting) like Jack Lowden, camping it up in order to project the makers opinions rather than the historical fact.

Add to this, that the film moves as slowly as syrup dripping down the side of a can and frankly, you should spend your time and money on any of the good biographies about the man because you will learn very little of the real Siegfried Sassoon by viewing this film.

It's an anti-war biopic of the English poet Siegfried Sassoon that covers Sassoon's life from 1914 to the 1960s.

Siegfried Sassoon (Jack Lowden/Peter Capaldi) was a Second Lieutenant during World War I. His younger brother, Hamo (Thom Ashley), is killed during the war. Siegfried is further horrified by the tremendous human toll in death and lifelong disability caused by military leadership in which he no longer believes. Already a well-known poet, he refuses further participation in the war and is sent to the Craiglockhart War Hospital near Edinburgh technically for shell shock. There Siegfried meets and befriends Wilfred Owen (Matthew Tennyson), a much younger man. Siegfried also explicitly recognizes his own homosexuality.

The film then follows his anti-war sensibilities through snippets of his poetry and his chaotic love life, mainly focused on Ivor Novello (Jeremy Irvine) and Stephen Tennant (Calam Lynch/Anton Lesser). At a certain point, he tries to escape the chaos by marrying Hester Gatty (Kate Phillips/Gemma Jones). Together they have a son. George (Richard Goulding), but clearly, the marriage does not heal Sassoon's memories.

The film uses footage from the trenches in World War I and occasionally flips in time between the young Sassoon and the elderly Sassoon. Some of the editing decisions made little sense to me, particularly the early scene forecasting his conversion to Catholicism. Some edits made the film more complex than necessary. Nevertheless, the movie successfully portrays Sassoon as disabled because of World War I, from which he never psychologically recovered. This is clear from the multiple references to Wilfred Owens' poem, "Disabled."

Davies is a masterful filmmaker. He has stated that he is not a "Gay" filmmaker in the way that, possibly, Jarman was. I think this is generally true. Davies seems more concerned with individual struggle and self-expression than homosexual rights. His period films recall a time when individuals created and asserted their identity in opposition to social conformity. While he emphasizes the personal and the private sphere of experience, he also recognizes how these can transform society. A Quiet Passion, Sunset Song, and Benediction are about people revolting in very unique ways. The performances and control of other elements are subtle, complex, and always interesting.

As a gay man, I always enjoy movies that show how difficult gay men had it "back in the day." This movie, however, was just a mess. The story line was all over the place, the characters irredeemable, and not well thought out, all around. The showed moved all over the place, in reference to time frames (which movies love doing these days, but this one didn't do it well, at all). The movie went from acting to poetry to singing to showing random pictures of WWI while reading poetry. There were parts I really enjoyed, but for the most part it was just disappointing.