Movie – Tolkien

Movie – Tolkien
Score : 7.5/10
Year : 2019
Director: Dome Karukoski 
Cinematography: Lasse Frank Johannessen
Country : USA 
Language : English
Duration : 1h52

Authors : David Gleeson and Stephen Beresford

This biopic tells of JRR Tolkien's life, covering, more or less, his childhood to the mid-1930's. It centers on his school years, the intellectual circle he'd been part of with his friends met there ; his meeting his wife, his artistic inspiration, love and invention of languages, and his traumatic experiences during World War 1, which would influence his writing greatly.


Despite knowing most of the events shown in this movie, I found it very emotional and tears came to my eyes on several occasions. Nicholas Hoult may not fully look like JRR, but he portrayed him really well and with emotive impact on so many instances and speeches! 
He does have the proper eye color, blue, contrary to Harry Gilby who played young JRR, with hazel eyes - a casting issue, causing a continuity one. 

The same slight issue, according to my wife who noticed it, young Edith (Mimi Keene) has a cleft and adult (Lily Collins), does not. 

As for the ending moment, when we see him writing the begining of one of his most famous novels, one has to assume that it depicts the moment he starts to put the pieces together - because in actuallity, he'd been writing on and off, many stories throughout the period covered in the movie, and had so many scraps and pieces of stories everywhere, that we must conclude this scene isn't the begining of the process- or else, it would be a factual error. 

There are, however more important concerns: the factual error about Tolkien's mother taking the children to Birmingham, not at the onset of teen years as shown, but at age 3 - hence as early as 1895. 

Also, the priest in the movie used a term (home-schooled) that wouldn't be used in 1980 (not that one really dwells on the minutia of dialogues).

His romance is modified in the movie,  as in real life he married before the war and his wife had to convert, with some dire personal consequences for her,  which aren't mentioned at all here. 

A trip to Switzerland which JRR undertook and would influence him as well isn't depicted at all either. 
These issues don't take away the intensity this film brings, but create several important gaps in the knowledge that a biopic should avoid, reducing the overall appreciation for what should have been a great movie, for which there are plenty of possible sources for information to check and cross-reference. This result is a sloppy homework by the writers. 

There are some comic moments, and really strongly emotionally charged ones. WW1 scenes are grim and occur regularly, as the editing of this movie isn't linear ; it actually starts with JRR Tolkien at the Battle of the Somme, in France, and through the majority of the movie, shows moments prior to it. 

This is where I can specifiy that I had feared these scenes would be far too graphic for me, they weren't overly bloody - with the exception of muddy pools, tainted with blood, and a few scenes showing some of the war's atrocity, but in a very limited way that I managed coping with.
Tolkien is a PG13 movie, because of these sequences.

The soundtrack is fully immersive, with music by Thomas Newman, which incoporated just a couple nods to the LOTR soundtracks, in a very discreet and respectful way that it wasn't plagiarising and its moment was well chosen. 

The cinematography included wide angles of landscapes, both during peaceful moments in Tolkien's life, and juxtaposed with the horrific battered lands during the war. There was a mixture of what Tolkien was looking at, and also elements from his imagination, never stealing images from any other Middle-Earth fictional movies, but with clear indications as to what parts of his narratives the shadowe and imagined images were decpiting.  

The dialogues, as I alluded, have a lot of humourous notes, but also  gravitiy. Some of it cannot be fact-checked after so many years, but si at least highly probable, and wittily written. 

The acting is very good from everyone involved, with special notes to the main cast members, for JRR and his close entourage. 

I would have prefered a more linear editing, because constantly returning to WW1 scenes kept me on edge, ready to look away in case it became too much. These scenes are scattered and make sense, but they are also upsetting - and maybe rightly so, as people need to know, and never forget. 

Tolkien is a very moving film about one of the most influencial authors of the 20th century. It immerses us into portions of his life, and clearly shows most of his influences that would be present in all his writings - be it people, or specific interests and experiences that would all coalesce into his creativity. However, there are gaps and liberties, changing his timeline, and one concludes the persons involved in writing after researching did a sloppy work in gathering information that is readily available. 

If you weren't a fan, you may be curious to learn more- partially through this film and extend to other sources,, but if you were a fan, and knew all its biographic details, you'd at least appreciate the craft of making this movie, despite it's faults, for what it is : a tribute to JRR, his life, and his legacy. I absolutely recommend - but, I'll remind about those PG13 elements discussed above as well as factual errors and liberties taken in depicting his life, which reduce my overall note to 7.5/10. 

Casting includes : 
Nicholas Hoult/Harry Gilby, as JRR Tolkien
 Lily Collins/ Mimi Keene, as Edith Bratt 
Anthony Boyle/Adam Bregman as Geoffrey Bache Smith, 
Patrick Gibson/Albie Marber, as Robert Q. Gilson,
Tom Glynn-Carney/Ty Tennant, as Christoher Wieseman,  

Colm Meaney as Father Francis Morgan
Derek Jacobi as Prof. Joseph Wright 
Pam Ferris as Mrs. Faulkner.

et. al. 

Full casting & team on IMDB