As an avid (though I wouldn’t go so far as to say “voracious”) fan of author J. R. R. Tolkien’s work—The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, etc.—and many of the subsequent multimedia adaptations that have followed in the decades since, I was certainly intrigued by the concept of a biopic about the man who brought us Frodo, Gandalf, Smeagol, the One Ring, and the benchmark fantasy world of Middle-Earth that they inhabit.
The trailers seemed to offer a showcase of life experiences and relationships that would directly shape, inspire, and make appearances in Tolkien’s literature; as an example, the fiery horrors of combat in the trenches of World War I giving way to the hellscape that he would later imagine as the land of Mordor, the place from which the dark lord Sauron would execute his reign of evil over Middle-Earth in The Lord of the Rings. The film’s marketing team surely knew this kind of “X real-life experience equals Y Middle-Earth factoid” would be the key to appealing to Tolkien fans, both casual and hardcore. Who wouldn’t like to know the real-life inspiration behind such a loyal companion as Frodo’s best friend, Samwise Gamgee?
But the fact of the matter is that Tolkien’s process for creating the world that millions would come to love was much slower and less allegorical than one might like to imagine. Without a doubt, people and events in Tolkien’s life appear in vague silhouettes and abstract ideas throughout his fantasy stories. But Middle-Earth was largely a product of an imaginative, obsessive mind cinventing landforms, people, and cultures around his first love: language. Tolkien created nonsense words and complete, meaningful languages long before he ever created characters that would speak them.
And this is a truth that the film Tolkien certainly understands (despite what a two-minute trailer might suggest), and it should be commended for not sugar-coating, streamlining, or expediting its depiction of how Tolkien’s imagination manifested itself in the form of Middle-Earth. In fact, the film barely touches on anything that would be recognizable from his iconic stories; it’s more concerned with the man, his mind, and his loves than the tales he would eventually tell, and that interest serves as perhaps the film’s greatest strength and its greatest limitation.
Tolkien spans several years in the author’s early life—chronologically, from the loss of his mother as a young child to his combat experience in the trenches of World War I—but it cuts back and forth, starting with the war and intermittently jumping to vignettes of his childhood, teen years, and college life. It’s all “well-done” from a technical perspective, but the childhood years really don’t bring much personality or excitement to the story; I have to wonder if those sequences could have been cut in half, or, in some cases, removed entirely. Tolkien starts to get interesting when it focuses on the author’s two greatest loves: Edith Bratt (Lily Collins), who would become his wife, and the art of language.
It’s a slow-moving film, meticulous in its pacing and setup, and arguably not rewarding enough at its climax, but the story is peppered throughout with beautiful sequences of Tolkien’s and Bratt’s romantic chemistry and discussions of language, charmingly brought to life by Nicholas Hoult and Collins, respectively. The two leads make the film perhaps much more interesting than it would have been on paper, thanks to patient and carefully timed performances, but it’s a bit frustrating to see a script not demand more of such clear talent. Another standout character and performance is that of Derek Jacobi as Professor Wright, Tolkien’s eccentric and immortally wise language professor. I couldn’t help but form subtle ties to Gandalf, but the film smartly avoids making such an overt and one-dimensional connection.
Unfortunately, there’s very little beyond the performances and the film’s full-bodied comprehension of Tolkien to latch onto. It’s a decidedly unexciting movie, with lots of sequences of posh boys standing around touting themselves as creative intellectuals a la Dead Poets Society, but without the abundant charisma and infectious dialogue. The war sequences are effectively grim in small bursts—and occasionally striking, from a visual standpoint—but are largely uninspired repetitions of tropes we’ve seen in countless other war films. A lack of inventiveness in style or structure might be the core to Tolkien‘s lack of interest; too many scenes are played too closely to the “How to Make a Biopic” books.
Ultimately, this is a film with a very limited appeal, and in a sense, that should be respected. Tolkien avoids over-glamorizing the early years of J. R. R.’s creative expression and never simplifies how he became the author we love today. Unfortunately, I have to wonder if Tolkien really lived an exciting enough life before Middle-Earth to warrant a methodical two-hour film. That, combined with the regurgitated biopic structure, make for a movie that’s fairly difficult to sit through, despite moments of greatness and a clear respect and understanding of the complexity of Tolkien’s process. Die-hard fans of the author will certainly appreciate how this movie portrays him. Those more concerned with details about the makings of Middle-Earth will likely be disappointed. This is the kind of movie I respect and appreciate for its comprehensive approach to its subject, but have no desire to ever watch again and feel very little for having done so once. In all honesty, it’s probably the film Tolkien himself would have wanted. But that doesn’t necessarily make for the most satisfying trip to the movies.
