Given the extraordinary power, popularity and (literally) "magic" of both books and movies, we are obviously in need of explorations of Tolkien's life and creativity, even as we know that you can't make a film out of a biographical book (of which there are several in this case - each of 300-400 pages), and even as we know that a person of brilliance and imagination flowing through the pen does not necessarily (though may) have a brilliant and imaginative life.
Ultimately, Tolkien was a language expert at British Universities (notably Oxford), though his early life (to which this film devotes itself) was not dull, even if it was not untypical for the late 19th and early 20th centuries in featuring imperially-motivated travel/adventure, disease, death and bereavement, uncomfortable schooldays and - of course, in time - war with a capital W.
Indeed, one of the greatest achievements of this work by Cypriot-born Finnish Director Dome Karukoski is its instinctive, near-visceral feel for the times. Edwardian mores are injected into the content, and they go so perfectly hand in hand with omnipresent scientific, but also pre-Raphaelite and Arts&Crafts-type influences, history and modernity coming up against one another. Maybe the movie is almost trite in doing this, but it seems meaningful to suggest that the Hobbit, LOTR and the rest were near-inevitabilities for the boy and man we learn a little about, in the time and place and circumstances he found himself.
Tolkien always denied that his work was over-influenced by World War One, even if none of us out here really accept that - yet the film (which the Tolkien estate and family had no truck with) does indeed build a kind of case that every aspect of the author's life pushed him through to what he achieved. Surely the War was in there, but so was young friendship, young love, loss of parents at a tender age, and a strong urge to become learned and expert in subjects that mattered to the man.
An ironic conclusion from this would be that the works were great, not just because the man was great, but because his times were. Of course, WWI was hateful in almost every way - as this movie makes abundantly clear - yet men (including several I myself spoke to) said "I wouldn't have missed it for the world, for the camaraderie". And in the end, both of Tolkien's great works are stories of loyalty and companionship in the face of suffering and danger.
The centrepiece here - though really only sketched out rather impressionistically - is the so-called "Tea Club, Barrovian Society" of 4 (we see 4, though there were a few more) clever and imaginative boys who pushed the artistic and behavioural boundaries just a little, in the actually very serene and safe surroundings of the cafe at Barrows exclusive department store in Birmingham (England).
Just re-read that last line in all its enigmatic, eccentric and ridiculous glory, then imagine the same people (still not much more than boys) in the Trenches or (in the case of Christopher Wiseman) in the Royal Navy. Only Tolkien and Wiseman came back, and Tolkien not entirely "whole" for some time.
The acting in the parts of the boys here is quite good enough, and Derek Jacobi works his usual magic as linguist Prof. Joseph Wright (in real life an academic of humble origins who got to study at Heidelberg but walked there from Antwerp in order to save the fare money!)
But this whole piece is so somehow "instinctive" that individual acted parts don't seem to matter too much. Our star in the form of "Cumberbatch Junior" Nicholas Hoult does not seem to give too much away, and certainly looks too young for the later scenes; but the wonderful, devout and devoted love portrayed between the young Ronald and his Edith (played by the ever-mesmerising Lily Collins) is well-done and certainly has its on-screen chemistry. Sad that the truth had to be departed from in places - the couple had already married (in March 1916) by the time Tolkien left to fight in World War One. He had loved her from the age of 16 on (when she was already 19). This is somehow significant, as it is widely felt that the Middle Earth books are not great at dealing with male-female love. Actually, I in the end beg to differ, as I think the developing love between Faramir and Eowyn in LOTR is actually one of the most touching and meaningful portrayals I know of. And since that was love on the back of loss, wounds, war and hopelessness one wonders how autobiographical that too might have been...
Perhaps we don't actually need a film to offer us the basic biographical details, but in terms of mood-setting this work is - for me at least - far more than adequate, and in fact rather entrancing. The fact that we see moments of battlefield visions of black riders, orcs and so on as our hero suffers trench fever is a bit of a turn-off, but for me by no means enough to ruin the film.
Ultimately, Tolkien was a language expert at British Universities (notably Oxford), though his early life (to which this film devotes itself) was not dull, even if it was not untypical for the late 19th and early 20th centuries in featuring imperially-motivated travel/adventure, disease, death and bereavement, uncomfortable schooldays and - of course, in time - war with a capital W.
Indeed, one of the greatest achievements of this work by Cypriot-born Finnish Director Dome Karukoski is its instinctive, near-visceral feel for the times. Edwardian mores are injected into the content, and they go so perfectly hand in hand with omnipresent scientific, but also pre-Raphaelite and Arts&Crafts-type influences, history and modernity coming up against one another. Maybe the movie is almost trite in doing this, but it seems meaningful to suggest that the Hobbit, LOTR and the rest were near-inevitabilities for the boy and man we learn a little about, in the time and place and circumstances he found himself.
Tolkien always denied that his work was over-influenced by World War One, even if none of us out here really accept that - yet the film (which the Tolkien estate and family had no truck with) does indeed build a kind of case that every aspect of the author's life pushed him through to what he achieved. Surely the War was in there, but so was young friendship, young love, loss of parents at a tender age, and a strong urge to become learned and expert in subjects that mattered to the man.
An ironic conclusion from this would be that the works were great, not just because the man was great, but because his times were. Of course, WWI was hateful in almost every way - as this movie makes abundantly clear - yet men (including several I myself spoke to) said "I wouldn't have missed it for the world, for the camaraderie". And in the end, both of Tolkien's great works are stories of loyalty and companionship in the face of suffering and danger.
The centrepiece here - though really only sketched out rather impressionistically - is the so-called "Tea Club, Barrovian Society" of 4 (we see 4, though there were a few more) clever and imaginative boys who pushed the artistic and behavioural boundaries just a little, in the actually very serene and safe surroundings of the cafe at Barrows exclusive department store in Birmingham (England).
Just re-read that last line in all its enigmatic, eccentric and ridiculous glory, then imagine the same people (still not much more than boys) in the Trenches or (in the case of Christopher Wiseman) in the Royal Navy. Only Tolkien and Wiseman came back, and Tolkien not entirely "whole" for some time.
The acting in the parts of the boys here is quite good enough, and Derek Jacobi works his usual magic as linguist Prof. Joseph Wright (in real life an academic of humble origins who got to study at Heidelberg but walked there from Antwerp in order to save the fare money!)
But this whole piece is so somehow "instinctive" that individual acted parts don't seem to matter too much. Our star in the form of "Cumberbatch Junior" Nicholas Hoult does not seem to give too much away, and certainly looks too young for the later scenes; but the wonderful, devout and devoted love portrayed between the young Ronald and his Edith (played by the ever-mesmerising Lily Collins) is well-done and certainly has its on-screen chemistry. Sad that the truth had to be departed from in places - the couple had already married (in March 1916) by the time Tolkien left to fight in World War One. He had loved her from the age of 16 on (when she was already 19). This is somehow significant, as it is widely felt that the Middle Earth books are not great at dealing with male-female love. Actually, I in the end beg to differ, as I think the developing love between Faramir and Eowyn in LOTR is actually one of the most touching and meaningful portrayals I know of. And since that was love on the back of loss, wounds, war and hopelessness one wonders how autobiographical that too might have been...
Perhaps we don't actually need a film to offer us the basic biographical details, but in terms of mood-setting this work is - for me at least - far more than adequate, and in fact rather entrancing. The fact that we see moments of battlefield visions of black riders, orcs and so on as our hero suffers trench fever is a bit of a turn-off, but for me by no means enough to ruin the film.