Tolkien

A story as romantic as biographical of the first three decades of J.R.R. Tolkien, who is best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion: his childhood and adolescence just before the first world war and his decisive encounters (Edith Bratt who will become his wife, the professor Joseph Wright who will turn his mentor and help him to to enter to the University of Oxford, and his friends with whom he will form a brotherhood, or even a fellowship). The analogies with his novels are obvious: the Ringwraiths a.k.a. the Nazgûl between the German trenches of the Bay of the Somme, or even Sauron on his black horse and his huge sword. The film portrays also the manifold sources of inspiration such as Nordic cultures / languages or operas like Der Ring des Nibelungen composed by Richard Wagner. The photography, the Computer-Generated Imagery and the costumes are excellent. The movie reflects reality more or less closely (the audience shall then dissociate the real from the fantasy) but is globally poetic. 6/7 of 10.

The film is satisfying for the most part - I just wished there was another hour tagged onto the ending which would show us how he created some of his legendarium.

The film mainly focuses on his friendships and romance with Edith in school - very little of the war was shown. Also showed his relationships with a couple of his teachers.

You will easily see in the film how things connected to his books - hidden references as well obvious ones.

Very good movie if you like biographies, romances and/or Tolkien.

8/10

Tolkien (3.5 out of 5 stars).

Tolkien is a beautifully done biographical drama film about a famous fantasy writer J.R.R. Tolkien who went on to write The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings series. It touched the base when him and his brother lost their mother to some illness. J.R.R. then went to a school where he met a few other teenagers that he did not get along with. Until, eventually they become close friends. There bond grows stronger over the years and they inspire each other to make a difference. He meets Edith (Lily Collins) who he falls in love with. He gets separated when he is drafted into World War 1.

The plot is pretty decent for a biographical film about J.R.R. Tolkien. The movie was a bit slow in the second act with Tolkien and his fellowship friends talking about stories. It could have been better handled. The plot is inspirational. Tolkien and his friends no matter how often they fight with each other, they will always be brothers. Tolkien and Edith fall deeply in love until they go on different paths. Years later, they come across each other again.

Nicholas Hoult is great as Tolkien. Lily Collins was also good as Edith. The music score by Thomas Newman is beautifully done. The direction delivers the eerie tone during the World War 1 scenes. Tolkien suffering from an illness. And trying to find his friends. When they are attacked. He witnesses most of his man killed in combat. Which he feels like he is isolated and he starts seeing visions of dragons out of flamethrowers. Or the aftermath smoke from the explosions looking like a dark lord Sauron. Which he uses his experience to write a fantasy story. While his one focus theme is the journey that everyone goes too and the experiences they face.

Overall, Tolkien is a pretty fair film. The plot is a bit inspirational and emotional with the journey Tolkien experiences. Sadly, the film suffers from an uneven pace in the second act of the movie. The performances and music score is fantastic.

"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

Tolkien was an unashamedly highly devout Catholic. The movie completely misses all of this.

For example, the movie opens with the Tolkien family thrust into poverty. It skips the fact that this was because Tolkien's mother converters to Catholicism in a very anti-Catholic Britain and was ostracised by her family who would not support her at all. Many more such examples missed. Tolkien called his mother a "martyr for Catholicism" and that The Lord of the Rings was fundamentally "a Catholic story."