Tolkien (2019) film

[Reikon Suchi-ru]

So we managed to get a Tolkien biopic from Fox Searchlight Pictures in 2019. Reviews for the movie seemed somewhat mixed, and the movie did not fare well at the box office (netting only $9 million worldwide on an estimated $20 million budget). Who all here has actually seen the film? I myself did not get a chance to see it, as I was doing fieldwork when it was released and it did not last long in theaters. Do you think it was a worthwhile Tolkien biopic despite the critical misgivings? What did you think of Nicholas Hoult as JRR? Of Lily Collins as Edith Bratt? Intrigued to see what the Plaza Community thought of the film!

[Mojo]

It completely glossed over and downplayed his Catholicism and the influence of Catholic ideals on his works. While (as we know well from Letters) his works are not directly allegorical, his Letters also show how important his religion and universal truths were to him. The movie completely missed the mark on that aspect of him.

[Reikon Suchi-ru]

Wow, that is pretty egregious in terms of missing out on a huge part of who he was and how it influenced his works. The previews made it seem like they pretty much just focused on his romance with Edith. Would it be accurate to say that, @Mojo?

[Mojo]

I'd say the romance story and his war experiences were the primary focus of the film, yes.

[FireroseArien]

I really enjoyed the movie. @Mojo is right in that it glossed over his Catholicism, but I thought it handled very well both the trauma of being an orphan AND the trauma of serving in the first World War. I thought the actors playing him and Edith did a wonderful job. How true it was to Tolkien as a man is, of course, debatable as dramatic license was almost certainly taken, but as a movie I quite enjoyed it. Especially the part about 'cellar door'.

[Yávië]

I watched it on an airplane and enjoyed it, but have been wondering myself how egregiously fabricated it really was. As someone who has read the Letters (a looooooooooong time ago) but not read the Carpenter (or any other) biography, it was engaging and suitably sad, but, well, I know not to trust a biopic. Biggest questions/thoughts that came to mind...

I know it focused on his early life, but I would have loved to see something of the Inklings.
My impression was that Tolkien refuted any relation to Wagner's Ring Cycle so what was with all that?
Was the Helheimr! battle cry purely an invention? And that scene with Tolkien waxing drunkenly in Quenya in the courtyard?

Quite a bit of the movie was about the T.C.B.S. quartet of school friends and how the war affected them, but again, I have no idea as to its accuracy. I have been meaning to look up the book of poetry by Geoffrey Smith that Tolkien the character pushes to get published. I suppose I should read the Carpenter biography while I'm at it, too.

Agree with Fir and Mojo on both points about Catholicism and trauma.

[geordie]

Was the Helheimr! battle cry purely an invention?

Yes, it was.

I was dissatisfied with the movie, to the point where I wouldn't want to see it again (not even for free, if/when it gets shown on the telly). For one thing, it's meant to be about real people; Ronald and Edith. One fact about the love story of Ronald and Edith was that they got married early in 1916 because they knew that Ronald was soon to go to France. Parting 'was like a death', as Tolkien said, years later. But for some reason which I cannot fathom, the characters in this movie were not yet married when he went off to war.
To me, re-writing Tolkien's life-story in this fundamental manner shows that the film-makers have little or no respect for the memory of Prof. and Mrs Tolkien.

I've given up commenting on this movie on f/book; if one more person rudely addresses me with the line 'It's Not A Documentary!!!'
I think I may explode.

[Aduchil]

The obstacle with any movie based on a real person's life is that our lives rarely fall into the neat story patterns that make for good movies. Typically, the only option is to select a certain part of their life and focus the movie on that; obviously the part that closest resembles a good story pattern containing conflict, character growth, a climax and fitting ending. I recently watched The Imitation Game, about Turing's life, which I felt was a biopic-esque movie that worked very well and left me highly entertained.

Here, they chose to focus on Tolkien's early years, building up his relations with schoolmates and contrast it with ww1, creating an emotional response when said schoolmates die in that war. Which was a sensible enough choice, I think.

That said, I didn't find the movie particularly engaging. As a movie, it was just hamstrung by trying to adhere to the real life Tolkien, i.e. it couldn't really create its own conflicts, stakes, and character depths that goes into a good movie of this sort. Even though they tried to choose a part of Tolkien's life that would best satisfy the needs of the storyline, it didn't seem enough to me. The love story between him and Edith may very well be factual, but except for a few compelling scenes, it didn't really interest me as a movie viewer.

I don't think this was anybody's fault, any of those involved in the movie. I imagine they all did their part as best they could. It just wasn't a good foundation for a movie. For those keen to know the details of Tolkien's life, a fictionalised movie like this is obviously not the right fare, as it must favour entertainment value over biographical details. For those interested in an entertaining movie, those same biographical details caused too much restraint to create a truly compelling story. A case of trying to sit between two chairs and falling in the gap between.

[geordie]

... the movie did not fare well at the box office (netting only $9 million worldwide on an estimated $20 million budget).

so, a bit of a flop as far as the financials go. I must say I'm a little surprised about that; I'd have thought that there would be enough interest in 'Tolkien and all that' for it to make a better showing. Though having said that, there weren't many others in the theatre when mrs g. and I went to see it. I wonder if biopics in general are out of fashion?

[Reikon Suchi-ru]

@geordie - While not in the same genre, Tolkien was up against Avengers: Endgame (which had just released two weeks prior) and also Detective Pikachu (which debuted the same weekend as Tolkien), which together grossed $150 million in the US during the week Tolkien debuted (which grossed $3mil USD in the US in its opening weekend). May is typically a time for big-budget summer blockbusters - at least here in the states, and so it's possible Tolkien was released at an inopportune time during the yearly movie cycle.

[Reikon Suchi-ru]

Also, Tolkien only debuted at #4 in the UK (behind Avengers: Endgame, Long Shot, and The Curse of la Llorona), garnering only $731,000 its opening weekend, then dropping nearly 58% its second weekend to #7, taking in only $309k that second weekend.

(all numbers are taken from BoxOfficeMojo.com)

[Akhenanat]

I saw in recently and thought it was decent. It was not a very deep film but it was not bad for what it was trying to do. It does gloss over a lot of his religious beliefs in favor of wartime experience but to be fair, Tolkien was a deeply complicated person and making a true biopic about his life would take a miniseries rather than just a film. I thought the acting was fair, nothing spectacular but nothing glaringly wrong. I would have it a 2.5/5 it was memorable in any real way but it wasn't a waste of time.

[Reikon Suchi-ru]

...Tolkien was a deeply complicated person and making a true biopic about his life would take a miniseries rather than just a film.

I think you've just hit on a fantastic idea! I would watch the heck out of an HBO Tolkien miniseries!

[Akhenanat]

As long as Amazon doesn't come within a hundred miles of it, I'm good with it

[Eldy Dunami]

I went to see Tolkien while it was in theatres, but it was at the end of a long and kinda unpleasant day, and I left partway through because I wasn't able to focus. That's not the movie's fault per se, but the part I saw wasn't enough to make me want to seek out the rest. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Lúthien Tinúviel]

I echo what others said about the film undercutting Tolkien's faith. Particularly, the only conversations in the film where it comes up are negative interactions with the priest who raised him, Fr. Francis Morgan (if I'm recalling the name correctly), mainly in regards to his relationship with Edith and Fr. Francis prohibiting him from pursuing her.

The romance between Tolkien and Edith was a prominent theme, and the actors weren't bad at the roles given, but their story is romantic enough as it was. My fiance and I were particularly annoyed at the dramatic kiss right before Tolkien heads off to war.

Also, there's a scene where Tolkien gets drunk in a courtyard and starts loudly speaking in one of his invented languages. I mean, we know the professor loved a good beer, but come on. It felt a tad disrespectful to his character.

I could go on, but it's been a year since I saw it, and it's midnight right now.

[Thalionwen Hunigfolm]

I didn't mind it. I personally give films a lot of leeway and with this one I do think they did a good job of giving a glimpse of Tolkien's interior and aesthetic life, even if some liberties were taken with the timeline and certain influences were dropped for the sake of brevity. But it's a beautiful film that captures that bittersweet, numinous quality a lot of his work has, and the score is GORGEOUS. Makes for some great writing music, if that's something you dabble in

[Nessila]

From a purely entertainment perspective, hubby and I enjoyed 'watching' the movie. From a 'true story' enactment, it fell far short. I was not surprised - albeit disappointed - that they undercut his faith and that they did not portray his and Edith's relationship and marriage timeline accurately. They did want to focus more on the guys and the war. Most secular films do not want to give credit to religious even if it is a big part of who a person is. Which is sad if you're trying to do a true story on someone's life and show what shapes and makes them and refuse to credit that shaping to one's beliefs in God. But from a 'I want to watch a movie and don't know who this guy is' perspective, it was entertaining and dramafilled. I have to admit I did enjoy it.

[Flame Fried Ent]

I agree with @Nessila. As a interesting enough way to wile away an evening, I liked it. I did chuckle at the drunken Quenya shouting in the courtyard. But as a factual bio-pic? Nope. If they can't even get when he was married right, then they didn't do their research.

[Lail]

I have to say I actually quite liked it! Especially since my partner and I love "historical biopics" as we call them and as a non-fantasy fan, it sort of exposed him to Tolkien in a way we could both enjoy. I know a biopic will never be wholly accurate and there were a few odd additions/alterations, I think it was overall a good film and a nice way to bring some appreciation to both his scholar and his great love for Edith, of which some people may be unaware. (Ok, obviously not us Plazaites, but to all those other people out there!)

I also liked the secondary focus they put on his friends at university, their friendship and experiences in life, though I'm glad @geordie pointed out the Helheimr was invented as it seemed quite random to me!

[Menolly]

*dropkicks thread to the top* So, I watched this a few days ago since I came across the DVD at the library. I really wanted to like it, although historical biopics aren't my go-to genre for movies. While I don't know enough about the details of Tolkien's life to talk about the accuracy, I wish the storytelling had been better structured. I couldn't remember the name of his third friend (Christopher) until they brought him up at the end, because they didn't do as good a job as I wanted in fleshing out the personalities of all his boyhood friends. A lot of the scenes were too long, IMO (the drawn out scenes on the battlefield and him and Edith acting out the opera come to mind), and there wasn't enough time dedicated to building the relationships we were meant to be invested in.

[Fuin Elda]

So I saw it as a Theatrical release. and honestly I was disappointed, I noted the arguement by @Aduchil around the issue with the timeline of a persons life not overly allowing for an entertaining story and while that is certainly the case as Tolkien didn't quite have the same overall climactic events in his life towards the end that would have allowed for more building like Alan Turing did I felt that they didn't do the best job that the could with the portions that they chose to go with.

That said with the glossing over of the Catholicism and the liberties that they did take I felt that they could have married Tolkien and Bratt before the war as would have been factual and possibly played up more to the Luthien and Beren undertones of the romance the thought of Luthien giving Beren strength to continue on and keep breathing etc. I felt the whole passionate kiss would have made more sense if it had of been feeling more like a death and again could have easily played into the L&B/romantic themes they did play with. It just felt... poorly paced and underwhelming over all considering what it could have been since they were already taking liberties.

[Mattie]

Overall I enjoyed the film. There were some quite interesting truths included such as Edith and Tolkien throwing sugar cubes at silly hats and the bus stealing scene.
The actor who played Fr. Francis was all wrong in my opinion.
I liked the subtle homoerotic undertones between Geoffrey and Tolkien, eg in the fencing scene. The film writers read Geoffrey Bache Smith's poems (A Spring Harvest) and letters and, one of the writer's being gay, came to the conclusion that Geoffrey was an in the closet gay. But I liked that the writers didn't take it further than that; to do so would have been stepping over the line.
I noticed also in the hospital scene towards the end that Edith's dress is dark blue with silver flowers around the neckline, it seemed rather Tolkienesque to me, almost elvish in design, even a little like to Finduila's cloak that Faramir (Tolkien's author avatar) gave to Eowyn.
I didn't like the Wagner references for Tolkien's ring has nothing in common with Wagner's save being plain and unadorned.
My favourite actor in the film was Derek Jacobi who played Prof. Joseph Wright. He did an extremely beautiful job. And to set the scene on Addison's Walk, beautiful.
The music was beautiful too.
I also didn't like Hoult's Tolkien being so open about the Legendarium. The real Tolkien was very secretive about it all.
I cried at the end for my own personal reasons.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

O ye veterans of movie adaptations and the like, can we agree that this 2019 Biopic was utter dross, a sentimental detour from and avoidance of the reality of its subject, remarkable in retrospect only as marking the crisis of future industry representations of Tolkien and Middle-earth?

All you above who expressed a liking, however luke warm -- But above are also many hurt comments that express a genuine tirade of grievances, with not so distant memory of actually watching the biopic, and these seem to me beyond justified.

But after some years, with this and that between, I look back on this dross and say - if people accepted this, the end was nigh for all movie adaptations. It has all gone wrong. The only virtue of this biopic was that it wrote the writing on the wall - it was simply untrue, a fantasy of the director embraced by the actors, touching Tolkien's life on occasion, telling the director's story -

- which ends in a lie.

The biopic culminates with Tolkien sitting down to compose a story, beginning with the first sentence of The Hobbit, pausing - inspiration - the word 'Hobbit'...

We don't really know so much about how Tolkien really came to write The Hobbit. But we do know that he told, on several occasions, the same story about how he was bored out of his mind earning some extra cash marking early summer examination scripts, came upon a blank page, and composed a spontaneous *sentence*. Not a word, a sentence. And not sitting down to compose a story but in a moment of distraction.

What to make of Tolkien's story, I don't know. But he told it on several occasions. The biopic culminates in an invention that is pictured quite other than Tolkien's own story. Whether or not Tolkien's story is true, I cannot say. But this biopic is simply a lie.

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Hmm, I had no idea this thread was around and even it is kind of dead. I can add that I saw the threatrical release and enjoyed the cinematic biography about Tolkien's en Edith's lives. Even some timelined events aren't exactly accurate as I can understand from what I have read above. I don't feel this visual biography was bad at all. I have a dvd copy at home of it. But much I don't remember of it as too much happened for me in RL (2016-2023). The movie was for at the time a small break from all the issues with my dad at home and a few hours for myself.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

A lot has happened since then, huh?! But I do declare again, this biopic stinks.

[Androthelm]

Aik, seconding your feeling — I was going through a lot at the time, and I remember the movie as a fine break from that, if a little un-memorable, that got me out of where I was for an afternoon.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

Crack cocaine can give a fine break from hard times. So can sniffing glue.

I wouldn't recommend those either. But I'd put watching that movie nearer the sniffing glue than smoking crack.

[Aikári Salmarinian]

Chrys: I don't hold it against you that the biography is nothing to you. But addiction stuff I keep far from and would never advice for use, even figuratively.

Androthelm: We all share quite similar stories at some point. As I am not a visual thinker a cinematic biography tells a lot to me about the depiction of older times than myself is alive.

[Ephtariat]

I love the Karukoski biopic and think it's better than both PJ trilogies (not to mention RoP). It's clear that they had to invent great part of the details, as the biographies don't have a great focus on Tolkien's youth (apart from Garth). But nothing was out of place. And I don't think that Karukoski downplayed Catholicism, since Mass scenes or prayers would have been out of place in the film. Instead, Karukoski did much better: he put a real scale Crucifix in the limelight in a scene in the trenches. That was better than a thousand prayers as a symbol of Tolkien's faith. And I don't care for statements lamenting the focus on romance with Edith: said focus is true to Tolkien and makes his character come alive. I think this film is the best Tolkien film of all, and among my favorite films of all (and trust me, I've seen A LOT of films!).

[Chrysophylax Dives]

I love the Karukoski biopic and think it's better than both PJ trilogies (not to mention RoP). It's clear that they had to invent great part of the details, as the biographies don't have a great focus on Tolkien's youth (apart from Garth). But nothing was out of place. And I don't think that Karukoski downplayed Catholicism, since Mass scenes or prayers would have been out of place in the film. Instead, Karukoski did much better: he put a real scale Crucifix in the limelight in a scene in the trenches. That was better than a thousand prayers as a symbol of Tolkien's faith. And I don't care for statements lamenting the focus on romance with Edith: said focus is true to Tolkien and makes his character come alive. I think this film is the best Tolkien film of all, and among my favorite films of all (and trust me, I've seen A LOT of films!).

Right, Ephtariat. This for when you come back and read this. But unlike with your Beren and Luthien research, I'm not going to endlessly debate this unless you attend to the substantial point that I am making.

The problem that I have with this biopic is that the ending is a lie, and this leads me to presume that all of it is a lie. The movie concludes with the pair married and the boys old enough for a good story and JRRT sitting down at his desk with a lovely fountain pen and clean parchment, with the intention of writing for his children a story. The focus is all close up, shifting from hand holding pen to face. JRRT writes: 'In a hole in the ground there lived a...' - and then pauses - close-up on (if I recall correctly) his mouth, speaking a NEW WORD - the sentence is complete, the movie is complete, JRRT speaks as he writes: '... hobbit.'

Now, JRRT recalled composition of this first sentence of The Hobbit on 3 or 4 occasions, always with the same basics. All are presented and sifted by John Rateliff in his edition of the early mss., so it is not as if this reality is hidden in an archive. Tolkien evidently wished readers of this story to think about it in relation to its first - spontaneous - sentence. Here, in contrast to the biopic lie, is the reality - at least as Tolkien told it.

Early one summer and needing some spare cash JRRT was sitting in his house in Oxford marking extra exam papers (beyond his professorial call of duty) and came upon a blank page. What is conveyed in his reminscences, and perhaps to appreciate requires the soul-crushing, mind-numbing experience of wading through a large pile of student papers, is a state of mind of acute boredom and the blank page as an oasis in the desert, pure blank space with no student scrawl that the poor, weary professor has to trudge through. And at that moment, JRRT Tolkien came to life and wrote - spontaneously and as one whole sentence (no pause): 'In a hole in the ground there lived a Hobbit.'

The only question to ask of this story is how the author of the sentence set about drawing a story out of this sentence that revealed its meaning.

Because one day in summer 1930, maybe two years later and sitting in a new house (a few doors down from the old house), JRRT had thought out this one sentence sufficiently that he was able to sit down and write, first of all a second sentence - to complete a first paragraph - and then another paragraph, all the way through to the end of a first chapter (about an unexpected party in the hole of this Hobbit), and then on, till early in 1933 The Hobbit was a completed manuscript.

The biopic concludes with a vision of art that is copied and pasted onto what Tolkien tells us. It makes a lie of his work.

Those who buy this biopic are doomed forever to mistake the naming of a fairy-element as something unrelated to the sentence in which it is discovered. This is like the PJ movies with their fake Hobbit holes with rooms entering onto rooms, the vanishing of the corridor that condemned a generation to mistake barrows and burrows, leaving them stuck on the wrong side of the Hill. I do not understand how genuine Tolkien fans can in good conscience fail to pour vitriol on these cinematic monstrosities.

[Ephtariat]

@Chrysophylax Dives Who says that the film depicts Tolkien's first writing of the Hobbit quote? That's when he started writing the book. Not a problem for me anyway, I don't require perfect accuracy in a film transposition but only loyalty to the spirit. That Karukoski has, and to a lesser degree PJ's first trilogy, while PJ's The Hobbit didn't, and Rings of Power has no reference text.

[Chrysophylax Dives]

In my innocent, happy way I opened this thread expecting to find your recognition of the worthlessness of this movie based on my demonstration of its lack of loyalty to any spirit of Tolkien's.

I really do not know what to say.

Obviously the scene depicts the first sentence because we are treated to the (fantasy of the) invention of the word 'Hobbit'.

This scene is a lie. It takes Tolkien's single most valuable guide to his linguistic theory and trashes it, throws it away, and replaces it with... nothing.

[Ephtariat]

@Chrysophylax Dives I think it is you making a whole fuss about nothing. Who says that they have to show him in his first writing the sentence? You're exaggerately picky! In a way that makes no sense at all, too!