Tolkien Review - No Spoilers

"All that is gold does not glitter" - a simple but pure reflection of a legend.

This week I made it out to watch Tolkien, a movie I never intended to see. As the credits rolled, I had to sit in shock as I reflected that I had almost missed this beautiful film.

When the movie was announced and the trailers came out, my response was largely one of apathy. As both someone who adores J.R.R Tolkien’s work and who has watched his fair share of bio-pics, the film looked like yet another generic retelling of an artist’s life and struggle as he began work on his famous projects. The trailer pulled at all of the typical heartstrings, and I couldn’t help but feel I’d seen this movie a few times already. I was interested to see what Nicholas Hoult would do with the titular role because he hasn’t disappointed me yet, but I really did not have any interest in seeing one of my favourite authors reduced to a few tropes and emotionally manipulative scenes. When a friend invited me to go hang out and see the movie, my instinct was to look at the wide variety of other films currently in theatres that I was much more interested in. Detective Pikachu, John Wick 3, even Avengers: Endgame deserved another viewing. But I figured that those were all movies I would inevitably catch again, and that once this movie left theatres, it would probably leave my life as well. So, I decided to take up the opportunity.

Again, I can’t help but be a little stunned in retrospect with how flippantly I dismissed this movie.

Don’t get me wrong – unlike the works of the titular author, Tolkien is no grand, transformative piece of art. It never quite strays away from biopic formula. However, the film utilizes familiar tropes in new and fresh ways, breathing in new life to a tired structure. Perhaps I’m just a sappy and emotional person (I am), or perhaps my expectations were just that low, but this film genuinely moved and surprised me. What impressed me the most in this film is the sheer joyous chemistry between Tolkien and the T.C.B.S., the group of friends and artists formed in Tolkien’s youth. Often times in this sort of biopic, the friends around our focal protagonist are constructed from stale, simple tropes and rarely given real character. I think of the recent release Bohemian Rhapsody, and how we never get very far from Rami Malek’s Freddy Mercury to look at the rest of the band. Here, I was surprised that each of the members of the T.C.B.S. had real life to them, they had growth and arcs and interests and shape. The younger cast of the T.C.B.S. had enough charisma that I was content to see them lead the rest of the movie, but as we naturally transition forward the older cast picks up the characters with just as much livelihood. There is a real genuine sense of camaraderie between the four characters, which makes the later events of the film that much more impactful.

Speaking of transitions, like many biopics, Tolkien aims to cover a wide margin of it’s protagonist’s life. As such, it frequently relies on time skips, with single scenes representing much wider growth of characters. Often, I find such representative sequences to feel trite, as they perform basic, skeletal, plot-work without needing to actually give something of substance. But here, a marvelous thing happens where even when we’re given a limited amount of time to see characters meet and become friends, it feels somehow natural. I think a lot of credit here must be given to how much this film sits and waits on these interactions. The scenes where Tolkien and Lilly Collins’ Edith fall in love aren’t simple, rushed montages. Rather, the camera often uses long, long shots and pans and simply lets the moments breathe. As we get to know the T.C.B.S., the direction allows us to just sit back and enjoy the shenanigans of these high school kids, letting their chemistry do the talking rather than trying to rush through interactions. This film takes an utter sincerity in its characters, which I think elevates it above a lot of cut-and-paste bio pics.

To that end, do not go into this movie expecting the typical hamstrung shout-outs. There is no scene in this movie where Tolkien is stuck writing a chapter, and someone is outside playing rugby and shouts ‘you shall not pass!’ and Tolkien says ‘ah! Of course!’ There is no equivalent to the wealth Bohemian Rhapsody’s base problem-solution approach to artistry. “Hmm, we need audience participation – oh, I know, let’s try stomping and clapping!” There are definitely allusion to Tolkien’s work, and we see clear incorporation of some of his influences, such as Wagner’s Ring Cycle. But these allusions are woven into the greater movie as we reflect on Tolkien’s life. We don’t see him publishing books, or meeting C.S. Lewis. The film takes place long before all of that. This movie is not about The Lord of the Rings, so much as it’s about what The Lord of the Rings is about. It’s a movie dedicated to the themes of Tolkien: companionship, love, nature, linguistics, adventure. It’s a movie dedicated to a passion for art. Our framing device is Tolkien himself, delirious and trapped in the hellish trenches of the Somme, grasping towards his past life. The sense the audience gets is that through the miserable mire of war, these are the elements that Tolkien held on to. The movie is less concerned with obsessively adoring the works Tolkien published, and more concerned with emphasizing the qualities that made Tolkien and those works so valuable to us.

It bears mentioning that Tolkien’s faith is not a major factor of this movie. That is, of course, a notable admission – but if you look through the reviews and discussion of this movie, they will react as if that is all the movie is. While I am saddened to see Tolkien’s faith so sidelined when it was an imperative part of his life, I think the fact that this movie has become ‘that Tolkien flick that didn’t talk about his faith’ is reductive.

If you’ve decided to skip this film because his Catholicism isn’t prioritized, I urge to reconsider. Although it fails in this respect, I would say it gets nearly everything right elsewhere. It is a surprisingly beautiful film about the impact of art and creativity, and of love and friendship. The score and direction and lighting are so softly imaginative, and while they never fully steal the scene, they always emphasize the magically creative approach Tolkien had to the world. And, without saying too much, they combine to create a haunting depiction of Tolkien’s war experience. The acting is always phenomenal – Hoult and Collins are especially magnetic, but the entire cast does so well. This movie also has a brilliantly hilarious Chaucer gag that no one else in the theatre reacted to, so if you’ve had the unique experience of trying to read Chaucer, you should see that as well. I've seen reviews saying that this movie drags, and perhaps I am simply overly-sentimental, but I do genuinely think this movie has something to it. It’s not the most genre-bustingly creative biopic of all time, but it’s honest sincerity to its characters and its themes give the old biopic structure a much-needed baptism. If you like Tolkien or you have a passion for art, I think this movie may surprise you.