War of words
Cert 12A ★★★ In cinemas now
Barbara Broccoli should take another look at Jack Lowden if she is open to the idea of a second Scottish Bond. The hugely underrated actor played a sympathetic Morrissey (no mean feat) in England Is Mine, put in an acrobatic turn in wrestling flick Fighting With My Family, and showed his comic timing in Sky’s spy series Slow Horses.
And here, he is excellent as a plummy upper-crust man of action. But this biopic of First World War poet Siegfried Sassoon is about as far from a Bond movie as you could imagine. Veteran arthouse director Terence Davies largely avoids the trenches to focus on a traumatised Sassoon’s post-war struggles with his homosexuality and the “ultimate capitulation” of marriage.
In 1917, he risks a death sentence by refusing to return to his duties, issuing a statement condemning the British government for continuing the conflict.
He makes his first compromise that same year when he reluctantly accepts help from his well-connected friend Robbie Ross (Simon Russell Beale), avoiding a court martial by transferring to Edinburgh’s Craiglockhart War Hospital for psychiatric evaluation. His return to the front line – and the death of his comrade Wilfred Owen – is shown in a clunky montage that mixes shonky CGI with archive footage.
The meat of the story is set in the Roaring Twenties as a traumatised Sassoon embarks on joyless affairs with composer Ivor Novello (a waspish Jeremy Irvine) and society darling Stephen Tennant (Calam Lynch).
Davies interweaves this story with glimpses of an elderly embittered Sassoon (Peter Capaldi) who is trapped in a sexless marriage to artist Hester Gatty.
Fans of prestige drama will enjoy the sharp dialogue and Lowden’s sonorous poetry readings. But this staid 137-minute drama can feel like a bit of a slog.
This hugely under-rated actor is excellent as an upper-crust man of action