Tolkien (2019)

Is the life of one of the English world's most famous writers as interesting as his famous books? This experience appears to answer the question; no. Not really. Lush period sets and costumes and good performances from a strong cast don't do much to make us care about the life of the writer of Lord of the Rings.

Tolkien is fairly standard biopic fare, telling a rather paint by numbers telling of the man's life. Director Dome Karukoski shoots his film in rich earthy tones and it's all lovely to watch. He seems to be trying to make a connection between the life of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien and his famous work. He goes to great lengths to develop a narrative which creates a "fellowship" around John, sends him on an adventure through a fiery hellscape, and find a catharsis in the need to tell a fantastic tale of wizards and elves. The film is almost gleeful in the way it finds inspiration for the moments of his epic in the life of his subject. It's like Dorothy at the end of The Wizard of Oz seeing all the real people who inspired the magical characters in her adventures.

So much of this feels forced even if it is an appealing notion. Without the connection to the Hobbit story, the life of John doesn't hold much beyond the life of anyone really. I'm not slighting JRR Tolkien. Like so many people he appears to have had a lovely and somewhat challenging if privileged life. But there needs to be a reason to tell a life story in a movie that will make it resonate and be interesting for audiences. Perhaps there wasn't much else there than our passion for his stories. Tolkien doesn't find much more interesting than that.

Tolkien isn't terrible or (that) boring or dreadful or even upsetting. It just is. And it didn't inspire much passion in me. Having said that I could watch Derek Jacobi read the phone book and I'd be fascinated. He's brilliant in anything.

Tolkien
Starring: Nicholas Hoult, Lily Collins, Derek Jacobi, Colm Meaney
Director: Dome Karukoski
Writers: David Gleeson, Stephen BEresford