Tolkien *** (2019, Nicholas Hoult, Lily Collins, Harry Gilby, Pam Ferris, Laura Donnelly, Colm Meaney) – Movie Review

Tolkien (2019) is a curate’s egg of a biographical drama film, with good scenes mixing uncomfortably with not such good ones. It stays interesting, though never fascinating, and this story of the young life of author John Ronald Tolkien proves a sticky wicket to bat on for a feature film, good though some of its parts are, though not the sum of its parts.

It is quite entertaining and enjoyable, but not particularly revealing or informative, or finally very satisfying. But, thank goodness, it is a serious film about something, about somebody, with no assassination attempt or obvious agenda, and for this, much thanks. They have come here to praise Tolkien and celebrate hi, So, good.

Alas, of course it comes with a bit of British heritage film stuff hanging limply over it, but not too much. It is pretty alive and vibrant, even occasionally provocative, ideas wise that is. Otherwise it is a bit too darned sedate.

It starts off for no particular reason with Tolkien in the trenches, and backs and forths unproductively between the young J.R.R Tolkien (Harry Gilby) and the young adult J.R.R Tolkien (Nicholas Hoult). Hoult and Gilby are well cast, and convince as the same person, though there is the usual hiccup with the young hero gives was to the older one, just when you have got used to one actor. Hence the frenzied back to the Somme trenches scenes, as if just to remind us that Hoult is the movie’s star.

Is he a bit too old now at 29 to be playing a pre-uni schoolboy and then college kid? Well maybe, but Hoult still looks pretty much young enough. Everybody tended to look twice their age back then anyway, and Tolkien looks like Methuselah.

There is a hint of homosexuality hanging over Tolkien’s little gang of four Fellowship. But the film is keen not to explore this at all, and gives in to a limp love story between the future author and a piano playing music loving girl, Edith Bratt (Lily Collins), who plays to soothe the nerves of the irritating old bat Mrs Faulkner (Pam Ferris), who is Tolkien’s landlady/ protector after the death of his mother (Laura Donnelly), farmed out there an an orphan by his stuffy guardian, Father Francis Morgan (Colm Meaney). Father Francis, by the way, starts out in a stern Dickensian sort of way, but then unconvincingly gets cosy.

At posh school, everybody is mean to Tolkien at first, but all too suddenly the other boys of a group of fellow outcasts at school think he is cool and befriend him. The script written by David Gleeson and Stephen Beresford can’t quite make this all-important transition work. Nor can they sell the idea of the friendship, love and artistic inspiration he finds with these other boys.

So lines of dialogue and whole scenes seem missing here, as the script gets back to its idea of safety with the love of a good woman, Edith Bratt, and back to those endless shots of the trenches, which, good though they are as eye-catching CGI, don’t get us anywhere, and we have seen them before and maybe even better.

We have seen before the stereotype of incredible gifted tutor (at Oxford) that the young hero needs to impress to survive and prosper. These scenes seem safe ground for the script too, and they have hired Derek Jacobi to play them, as Professor Wright. Jacobi pitches in gamely with a useful hammy performance that, while it further dents the film’s credibility, does add to its pleasure quotient.

There is a lovely, beautifully written and played scene at the end between Tolkien and the mother of his fallen colleague. It shines movingly like a beacon in the film. But at the cinema, the young man in front of men walked out, and so did the man across the aisle. I get why. It is all talk. They missed the final bit back in the bloody trenches, and back on safe ground with the CGI and a pretense at action.

Though I learned next to nothing about the formative years of the orphaned author, and didn’t entirely believe in the characters and narrative as presented (oh, the First World War has broken out, let’s talk linguistics) I still enjoyed Tolkien. It is a civilised entertainment with civilised company.

It is Finnish director Dome Karukoski’s first English language movie.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Movie Review

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