Review: Lincoln

The story of how American President Abraham Lincoln (Daniel Day-Lewis) fought to abolish slavery and also see an end to the Civil War. Tommy Lee Jones plays congressman and abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens, a more radical Republican than Lincoln, who is nonetheless needed to help the 13^th Amendment pass. Sally Field plays Lincoln’s loving but emotionally unbalanced wife Mary Todd, who worries that their eldest son Robert (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) might fight and die in the war. David Strathairn plays Lincoln’s faithful Secretary of State William Seward, whilst Hal Holbrook plays Republican founder Preston Blair who supports Lincoln but is wary of radicals like Stevens (Notably he was also a former slave-owner who came to support the 13^th Amendment). James Spader and John Hawkes turn up as a couple of Republican lobbyists, while Jared Harris turns up briefly as Ulysses S. Grant.

Although far from his best film, this 2012 biopic benefits from the solid filmmaking of Steven Spielberg (“Jaws”, “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, “ET: The Extra Terrestrial”, “Schindler’s List”, “War of the Worlds”, “Minority Report”) , but also the superb, Oscar-winning performance by Daniel Day-Lewis in the lead. Scripted by Tony Kushner (The lesser Spielberg flick “Munich”), I think it’s a shame that it only focuses on a singular aspect of Lincoln’s life and political career, to be honest. It’s about Lincoln freeing the slaves and attempting to end the war. It’s a solid and interesting film that isn’t quite as emotionally affecting or resonant as I was expecting or hoping, and I think that narrow focus really is the reason. While Daniel Day-Lewis’ performance is the film’s major highlight, I actually think it deserved a better vehicle. Day-Lewis plays him as thin, advancing in age, but authoritative if a quiet, yet eloquent way (eloquent for the period at least). He plays him as a man who appears to have a bit of the ‘common touch’, as well. Day-Lewis is excellent. He could very well be the best actor alive today. If he were more active, the matter might be even much clearer. He looks right as Lincoln, and especially in scenes where he’s shot in slight shadow, the resemblance appears to be uncanny. He’s certainly the best Abraham Lincoln in cinema to date. Abraham Lincoln has been built up over time to be larger than life and iconically deep-voiced. Day-Lewis and Spielberg set the record straight on the latter, and also humanise the ‘great man’. That’s why I kind of wish it was more of a traditional biopic, so that it would focus more on the man. Kushner’s screenplay seems more concerned with politics. The good thing about that though, is that I enjoy all of the politicking and speechifyin’. Some might find it a bit dry, but to me it was all interesting, as Lincoln for all his innate decency as a man (and we do get some sense of that), was ultimately a shrewd politician. So in terms of making a potentially dry subject rather interesting, I think Spielberg and Kushner succeed.

Although this is quite clearly Day-Lewis’ film, the supporting cast is excellent. Sally Field seems too old to play Lincoln’s wife Mary Todd, but if you can get past that, she plays slightly unstable and unfiltered very well. She has a great scene where she tells Tommy Lee Jones’ Thaddeus Stevens exactly what she thinks of him. The woman apparently had no filter. As for Jones (who looks a little bit like the real Stevens), he’s excellent as the most strident opposition Lincoln faces in his own political party, though he reluctantly comes to agreement with him on this one issue. I was particularly fond of Hal Holbrook as an old Republican stalwart, whilst a disturbingly portly James Spader and the ubiquitous John Hawkes have a lot of fun in what is otherwise a fairly serious film. David Strathairn gets a somewhat thankless role, but it’s the actor’s lot in life to be playing rather boring, humourless people and he excels at it. A fiercely bearded Bruce McGill makes a memorable impression with minimal screen time too, and Walton Goggins has a very funny small role as a nervous politician. I think Gloria Reuben’s character is far too passive/observatory to really help the actress, so that’s a minor blemish on the film. The film looks good, and it’s to the credit of Spielberg and Janusz Kaminski (“Schindler’s List”, “Saving Private Ryan”) that a film dominated by black, blue, and brown hues and mostly dark lighting is not drab. At times it’s truly stunning.

A good, but not great film with an absolutely great central performance by an Oscar-winning Daniel Day-Lewis, who humanises a titanic figure of American politics. He’s backed up by an excellent cast, and if the scope of the script isn’t quite as large as I’d like, it’s certainly an interesting topic and the film is also funnier than I expected. I do hold Spielberg to a particularly high standard though, and this one’s not in the upper echelon.

Rating: B-