Why do you hate the modern world, father? Because it's younger than I am.

Continuing my trip up The Guardian's top 50 films of 2022

#40 : Benediction

Terence Davies’s account of the life of Siegfried Sassoon (played by Jack Lowden and Peter Capaldi in younger/older versions), tracing his career from lionised war poet to unhappy later life.

This is a film there would have been no chance of me watching under normal circumstances - I'm expecting bucketloads of typically English, buttoned-down repression.  I'm sure it will be well acted and look fantastically vintage, but, for me, will prove to be a struggle to engage with.

And yeah, that's pretty much where we are.  We follow Siegfried from his war years to old age and, to be fair, it is an interesting enough story here - the man lived a full life!  He fought incredibly bravely during World War I, but declined to return after a period of convalescence, taking a stand by writing "A Soldiier's Declaration" which was read out in the Houses of Parliament.  Rather than being court-martialled, he was sent to a military hospital (where he met Wilfred Owen) and, after some time, returned to the front line in France - where he was shot in the head in a friendly fire incident, which somewhat ended his war effort.  

Which just enabled him to spend more time writing and sleeping with men including Ivor Novello, a German prince and Stephen Tennant, a socialite who has a fascinating Wikipedia entry (he's popularly believed to have spent the last 17 years of his life in bed).  After he'd got that out of the way, he got married, had a son, got divorced and late in life, converted to Catholicism.  Whilst all the while being incredibly bitter about everything.  So there's plenty to tell us - but it's actually incredibly tricky to follow because the timeline jumps all over the place.  Without, as far as I could see, adding anything to the telling - a mostly linear depiction would have worked just as well for me.

And.  

There.  Are.  Interminable.  

Pauses.  Everywhere.

And lots of looking into the middle distance as well.  But that's nothing compared to the levels of repression in there.  You name it, and it's repressed in this film.  Anger, pain, homosexuality, love - there's probably even repressed repression if you look hard enough.  And it goes on for 137 minutes - which I'm afraid is far too long for the likes of me.

It is well acted though - Siegfried is played by Jack Lowden and Peter Capaldi, Stephen Tennant by Calam Lynch and Anton Lesser and Hester Gatty (Siegfried's wife) by Kate Phillips and Gemma Jones (her third appearance in a Guardian film recommendation we've met) and they all do a good job of acting appropriately for their timeline.  Jeremy Irvine puts in a good turn as Ivor Novello, it's always nice to see Geraldine James in anything and it was a bit sad to see Julian Sands in what is probably one of his last roles.

It's also, as expected, very good looking - no effort has been spared in ensuring the authenticity of every aspect.  Probably so anyway - because, let's face it, it could be a million miles off and I'd never know.  And everyone also feels like they're behaving in the way you'd expect them to, which I guess is a credit to the director but, for me, a letdown - I feared things would turn out that way and so it turned out.

So, all in all - this isn't one for me.  If you like a nice wartime poet biopic with lashings of angst then it's definitely one for you, but I found it to be just too slow.  At time of writing, it's available to watch on Netflix - if it sounds like your sort of thing then it definitely will be, so check it out there.

#41 - A really enjoyable and thoughtful film
#39 - An important, but not great, film