Turbulent battles of a First World War poet
Siegfried Sassoon is celebrated as one of the great First World War poets but it is often forgotten that, unlike his friend Wilfred Owen, killed in action just before the war ended, Sassoon lived well into the modern age, eventually dying in 1967 at the age of 80. Benediction, the new film from veteran British director Terence Davies, explores the poet’s long, turbulent and often unhappy life.
It makes an awkward start, jumping between Sassoon’s late-life conversion to Roman Catholicism and his youthful prime half a century earlier, and what would shape his life – the war, his famous ‘Soldier’s Declaration’ which saw him sent to a psychiatric hospital rather than face a court martial, and his homosexuality.
Jack Lowden is excellent as the younger Sassoon, although this teeters occasionally on the edge of period, Evelyn Waugh-style pastiche.
The Innocents ★★★★ is an impressive Scandinavian chiller that sees young Ida (Rakel Lenora Flottum, right) arriving with her parents and autistic sister to begin their new life on a Norwegian housing estate. She’s resentful of the attention her mute and distant sister receives and has trouble making friends. But when she finally befriends Ben (Sam Ashraf ) he turns out to have magical powers. But we do care, especially when the pair befriend another little girl with special talents, Aisha (Mina Yasmin Bremseth Asheim). Yes, there’s a touch of X-Men: Kids but the children’s naturalistic performances are extraordinary and, with director Eskil Vogt playing it totally straight, its impact is quite something.
The Road Dance ★★★ is a period drama set on a Scottish island during the First World War and revolves around life-changing events at a dance to say goodbye to a village’s conscripted young men. For pretty Kirsty (Hermione Corfield) it’s already a bad day as she waves off her beau, Murdo, but it’s about to get much worse. It’s a little clunky but atmospheric and authentic-feeling too.