Film Review: Tolkien

I feel like there is a good film somewhere in Tolkien, but it lacks the proper vision and discipline to tell the story it needs to and in the way it should. In some ways, this is trying to bring something different to the standard biopic formula, as the film is largely devoted to the life of Lord of the Rings scribe, J. R. R. Tolkien (played here by Nicholas Hoult) before he ever writes The Hobbit, which is where the film ends. But on the other hand, it sometimes can’t help but lean on some of those typical impulses that plague so many biopics, especially with its use of flashbacks, since we start with Tolkien in the trenches during WWI before cutting to events prior.

The film is the English language debut of Finnish filmmaker, Dome Karukoski, whose work I’m not familiar with, but it seems like he’s achieved great success in his home country. I enjoyed what he was doing visually with the film. With the way it’s edited, especially when alongside Thomas Newman’s score, there’s an almost dreamy quality to the film’s rhythm. Karukoski also does these things where Tolkien would see visions of monsters and knights on horseback as well as an approximation of Sauron during the war, and while they are painfully on-the-nose, they are at least something nice to look at.

The film essentially tries to be about how Tolkien’s relationship with his three best friends, Geoffrey Bache Smith (Anthony Boyle), Robert Q. Gilson (Patrick Gibson), and Christopher Wiseman (Tom Glynn-Carney), as well as the love of his life, Edith Bratt (Lily Collins), informed ideas that would eventually be found in his work. The problem is that a lot of these characters that Tolkien is so invested in aren’t particularly interesting. We get a bit a moment here and there early on with certain characters, but sometimes they bleed into one another, and there was even a point where I confused one friend for another for an extended period of time.

The runtime is under two hours, and it manages to feel longer, yet nowhere near as substantial as it should. The film shows and tells us all these things about Tolkien’s life, but we’re rarely given a moment to get inside his head and really feel what he is experiencing, and when it does do that, it does stuff like the visions and various other nods to his books. It just takes a very broad and basic approach to tell you how he got these ideas in his head, but without attaching much meaning or emotional resonance to those ideas.

It’s not all bad, though. For the most part, it’s a beautifully made film, and the performances are extraordinary. At least, Nicholas Hoult is certainly extraordinary. He brings a dignified charm and angstiness that is really engaging to watch. He has great chemistry with Lily Collins and the actors who play his friends. Collins doesn’t get a lot to do aside from the things you’d expect from a love interest character, which is unfortunate, but she does do a wonderful job with what little she has here. Aside from the look that the filmmakers brought on, it is full of details in the period setting from the countless costumes to the vast sets. There was definitely a lot of care put here, but it just doesn’t add up to much.

That’s ultimately the biggest downfall of Tolkien. You can’t make a movie about the life of J. R. R. Tokien, and not have it add up to much, especially given his contribution to literature and culture, which is felt to this day, and will likely be felt in the future. I admire many things about this film, mostly with Nicholas Hoult’s performance, certain scenes that I found to be wonderfully executed, and with some of the filmmaking choices. However, I was ultimately disappointed, underwhelmed, and sometimes just straight up bored. Tolkien is just too fascinating and influential of a figure to receive this kind of treatment.