As we trundle through awards season, it’s clear the UK is getting completely and utterly shafted with film release dates at the moment; movies up for the big wins at the various ceremonies are being scattered about, and released late after scooping up gongs, which isn’t exactly striking when the iron is hot. Even Steven Spielberg’s much heralded Lincoln has been dumped to being released this past week, despite being out in the USA since early November. But does a delay in release hinder ‘Honest Abe’ at the box office?
Recently re-elected and popular United States president, Abraham Lincoln (Daniel Day-Lewis, There Will Be Blood) is in the closing stages of the American Civil War against the losing and close to quitting Confederacy. However, ‘Honest Abe’ wants to force through the Thirteenth Amendment – the abolishment of slavery of African Americans in the United States – as he fears it won’t pass in peace time and he wants to take advantage of his war powers. It still has to pass through Congress first however so Lincoln sets about using whatever tactics he can to get through his new law before bringing the war to a close.
Day-Lewis is a master of his craft as always and reinvents himself to give a scarily accurate version of ‘Honest Abe’. His poise and charisma adds to the romantic appeal of this man. His soft spoken voice for Lincoln carried weight in a lot of various situations, ranging from delivering a humorous anecdote to raise moral in his war bunker to a vicious argument with his wife. It’s a disappointment to know that Day-Lewis only really makes a film every five years or so at the moment when the man is clearly in the prime of his career. His dedication to his method acting and choice of projects has to be admired of course and it’s never a bad thing to leave an audience wanting more.
The rest of the cast doesn’t hold too much of a candle to Day-Lewis and the incredibly bad decision not to introduce who the various political players are throughout the film hurts. Sally Field (Amazing Spider-Man) is okay as Mary Todd Lincoln, and delivers emotion when needed, but she’s definitely not good enough for the various Best Supporting Actress shortlists she’s been appearing on recently. More impressive was David Strathairn (The Bourne Legacy) as the president’s secretary of state William H. Seward. With his distinctive look and face, he had more than enough guile to step up to the plate when needed to argue against Lincoln.
Deserving of award nominations is Tommy Lee Jones (Hope Springs) who steals scenes as U.S. Congress leader Thaddeus Stevens. There are some ridiculously good monologues which shake a sleepy audience’s attention back to full and his dour demeanour suits the politicians of the time period well. Joesph Gordon-Levitt (Looper) has a criminally small role as Lincoln’s eldest son who wants to go fight in the war to do his duty to his country, despite the elder Lincoln insisting it’ll be over soon. We then see him in background shots for the rest of the film. Quite why he chose to take a small role where the film is half forced to find something to do is a mystery, even if it is to work with Spielberg and Day-Lewis.
A film based on a historical textbook about Lincoln’s political dealings doesn’t sound the sexiest thing ever to put on the big screen, and in places it’s not; at times the film comes across as a simple means of visually listing historical events, facts, figures, names etc. instead of actually going on with the plot. Accuracy in films is important, and you have to get it right with a massive figure in American history like Lincoln, but it is bloody dull. At times Lincoln comes across as a two and a half hour history lesson; with a great subject but delivered by a boring teacher. Shame on you screenplay writer Tony Kushner!
That’s not to say the direction from Spielberg (Jaws) is bad. Despite the film being nigh-on-impenetrable at times, his directorial style keeps it simple enough so you can at least keep up with the plot. There are suitable enough music cues to say and suggest the current moods, tones etc. All the various characters have distinct faces, and there are no generic looking people so you can follow the film like that too. It may sound a bit patronising towards an audience, but it’s doubtful the majority of cinemagoers in the UK know the back-room staff of Lincoln’s presidencies inside-out so it gets a pass.
The story of Lincoln revolves around the titular president gaining enough votes in congress to put through the latest amendment which means he has to go get some from the opposition Republican party. The film descends into how Lincoln sanctions off slighty dodgy tactics with offers of jobs (definitely not bribes!) and the like to garner votes, despite the southern states willing to call a truce. It shows not a dark side of the former ‘Honest Abe’ per se. more of a desperate man fighting to win his cause over, which is far more interesting than standard dodgy political backhanders we see nowadays.
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What’s weird is that fairly familiar historical figures like U.S. army general Ulysses S. Grant flash onto the screen with introductory title name cards yet figures like Seward (who doesn’t spring into mind for my top 10 U.S. secretaries of state from the 1800’s) come onto the screen with next to no introduction or clue as to how important they are. Most of the politicians I had to research for this review just to get on top of the film, after watching it, which is never a good sign. Considering it was done for about four or five characters already, it’s odd why they didn’t do it for everyone in the film to give a sense of importance to those who warrant it.
Suffering from a lack of slavery and race tones, there is some damage to Lincoln in the face of the release of Django Unchained. When you consider how good Django is at establishing the conditions of how bad black Americans were treated not too long before the time period of this film, we could have had a nice bookend to the slavery of African America but Lincoln shows up lacking. Of course, it’s meant to be about the actual politics of the decision to abolish slavery for African-Americans which is fine. Admittedly, it’s crowbarred in towards the end (with a group of free African-Americans joining in to sit on Congress’ decision and one of the politicians opting against the Amendment due to his brother dying in the war), but there isn’t an overall feel across the film that makes it important or shows why Lincoln is really doing it.
I’m sure if the source material and the film were made more accessible for viewers not familiar with American politics at this time then we would be looking at a bondafide classic, but I can only appreciate Lincoln for what it is. Not easy to penetrate but still worth watching due to a fantastic job by Day-Lewis and saved by Spielberg’s clear directing.
Terry Lewis – @thatterrylewis.
