As a young student, J.R.R. Tolkien finds love, friendship and artistic inspiration among a group of fellow outcasts. Their brotherhood soon strengthens as Tolkien weathers the storm of a tumultuous courtship with Edith Bratt and the outbreak of World War I. These early life experiences later inspire the budding author to write the classic fantasy novels "The Hobbit" and "The Lord of the Rings."
Tolkien is, unfortunately, one of two films featuring Nicholas Hoult to be released this week that fail to meet expectations. While nothing can be blamed on Nicholas Hoult (he does well with what he was given to work with), Tolkien comes across as flat and unemotional, with the cause of many issues coming down to the fact that the Tolkien Estate has involvement with the film.
Let's be straight here, the Tolkien Estate did not approve of the making of The Lord Of The Rings and The Hobbit film trilogies either. But in those cases, When the source material is so readily available, all the content needed to make the film is there for the picking. In the case of a biographical film based on the author of the books, one would really want those that knew the author the most, to be involved, to ensure the personality traits and performances were in line with the person being portrayed.
As it stands, Tolkien largely feels like a school play. The right things being said, and the right actions being done, but lacking any sort of emotional depth or connection with the role being portrayed. No clear direction was given to the actors. The exception to this comes from Lilly Collins portrayal of Lily Collins portrayal of Edith Bratt, which felt incredibly authentic and added a sense of strength and charisma to her scenes and subsequent romantic arc with Hoult's Tolkien.
Another issue with having no authorization from the Tolkien Estate is that many details from the books cannot be referenced. Which begs the question, what is the point of the book if not to look at specific instances where Tolkien was inspired to create certain characters or places. Without the ability to go into specifics, the story becomes overly generic and full of forced instances where they overuse words that they are allowed to use like "Ring" or "Fellowship", in unusual places.
There are some interesting aspects of Tolkien's life to be seen. While the role of Catholicism in the film is severely understated (to the point that certain pieces of dialogue feel out of place as they have never been brought up prior), taking note of his choices in acquaintances, and seeing where his love for storytelling, world-building, and linguistics comes from is enjoyable. There are also some nice scenes that provide a visual interpretation of how his experiences during the Battle of the Somme heavily influenced the fantastical element of his storytelling. Heavy use of CGI, but intriguing to see the artists view compared with the realities of the war, and the similarities that they held.
The film consists largely between the two parts of his life; his schooling and World War I, which were deemed instrumental parts of forming his creative passion. The film stays mainly in his upbringing, flashing forwards into WWI at certain times juxtaposing the love and beauty of nature with the dark and morbid scenes of battle and death. This battle between light and dark elements of his life occurs frequently through the film, but again everything is so generic, it feels like the film could be about any writer that was conscripted into WWI. The jumping between times does have a negative effect on the pacing of the film, feeling slow and uneventful, something that doesn't help the stable of undeveloped characters by interrupting their stories before they get a chance to engage with the audience.
Tolkien is quite a mixed bag. Trying to include story arcs around his love interest, friendships, scholarly endeavours, family life, and war events, creates a muddled mess that doesn't get to delve deeply into any of them. With the exception of Lilly Collins romantic arc, none of the characters get enough time onscreen to do their stories justice, and the audience is left apathetic towards their arcs, rendering emotional scenes bland and uninteresting.
The Battle of the Somme acts as the climax of the film, which is unfortunate. It means everything that happens afterwards is simply part of the epilogue, and the film ends exactly where it gets interesting for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings fans; with the first and only uttering of the word "Hobbit".