Tolkien (2019) Reviews

• A beautiful and moving film

  alever-468232019-05-05

  I am a huge Tolkien fan and after reading some of the critics reviews I was a bit wary of seeing this film. I do not know which film the "critics" have seen but from their conclusions I do not recognise this film. I have literally just left the cinema, I found it so moving that I found myself in floods of tears. Beautifully acted, and set against the backdrop of WW1 the sense of loss and the harrowing reality of what war is came across in such depth. I loved the focus on language and the weight it can carry, It made me feel that words are in their own right living creatures. This is one of the few films that has not just entered my brain but is also in my heart. Please go and see this film whether you are a Tolkien fan or not, it is truly captivating.

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• Gentle, honest and touching telling of Tolkien's life

  Fudge-32019-05-04

  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!'

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• Enjoyable escapism

  annebarden2019-05-07

  Lovely film, great design, imagery, made me want to read the books, which the films never did! Not without flaws, but what film is, it seems to be getting criticism unfairly, it's entertaining, and opens you mind to language.

• The film is aimless...

  CubsandCulture2019-05-11

  The film's main problem is it doesn't want to be about what it is about. The film is largely a series of episodes of how various things (events, people, other works etc.) influenced the Middle Earth texts. But the film resists trying to draw 1 to 1 parallels between Tolkien's life and his fictional world.The film goes out of its way to avoid allegory. This is somewhat admirable given Tolkien's famous distaste for allegory but at the same time there's too much of the Middle Earth texts in the film to avoid making the connections. And the film clearly wants you to make those connections. This split aim makes the film have no real narrative drive. I do like how sometimes the narrative unspecified symbolism allows you to read several aspects of Tolkien's mythology into a scene. There was 2-3 times an ambiguous reference to either Sauron or Morgoth. While the film is in the batting average for historical accuracy for Hollywood it weirdly ignores obvious things to discuss. The film greatly downplays Tolkien's Catholicism to the point where he doesn't seem any more devout than a random guy from that time period. Worse the film spends a lot of time on his courtship with Edith and the film just doesn't use the bit about Tolkien proposing at 12:01 on his 21st birthday. This makes Tolkien a less complex figure for removing his stubbornness. However much the film's story is lacking I love the direction-cinematography in this film. There is a ton of very provocative and lyrical images that feel more Middle Earth to me than the weaker parts of the Jackson films. The film is handsome and despite the narrative drive being missing it doesn't get bogged down. It plays out like a standard coming of age tale, abet a more artistic one. With all that being said Hoult's performance is easily the best part of the film and I wish it was in a much better film. I don't think he will ever top R but this a very touching naturalistic take on an icon.

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• Enjoy a romantic bio of Tolkien's early years, and get a hint of his inspirations.

  jdesando2019-05-06

  "A safe fairyland is untrue to all worlds." J.R.R. Tolkien Although the name Tolkien conjures up thoughts of fantastical tales about hobbits, rings, and magic of the highest order, there's little magic and much reality in the new biography, Tolkien. Yet there is much romance, in fact a genial part of an otherwise difficult life. In reality this story of J.R.R. Tolkien (Nicholas Hoult), up until he becomes well-known for his fantasies while he is bringing up four children and loving his "elfin" princess, Edith (Lily Collins), has a magic of its own. At the same time, it acknowledges the serious shortcomings of an impecunious genius struggling to be heard in the din of class restrictions and WWI. Besides the delightful early courtship of Tolkien and Edith, the best romance in a long time as far as I am concerned, is the romance of his boy's club. It started before the four culturally gifted young men enter Oxford and Cambridge and goes through the war, which decimated their little intellectual "fellowship." The support they gave each other, the companionable joy, has rarely been so lovingly captured on film. Lamentably, the boys never develop fully as characters, perhaps because of time restrictions. Satisfying is his discovery by rhetoric professor Wright (Derek Jacobi), who eventually acknowledges Tolkien's genius with language. For those skeptical about the importance of education, watch Tolkien come alive in Wright's hands. Although these early years seem accurately reported, the joy of this film is in seeing the slow but inexorable growth from a small boy raptly listening to his mother's fantastical readings to a young man doodling heroic figures on horses and scratching out inchoate stories that will give birth to some of the most influential literature in the Western world. "If you really want to know what Middle-earth is based on, it's my wonder and delight in the earth as it is, particularly the natural earth." Tolkien

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