Birdsong (2012) User Reviews (49)

"There is nothing more, sir, than to love and be loved"

[doug_park2001 · 8/10 · 18 June 2013]

First of all, BIRDSONG is beautifully filmed and acted. Joseph Mawle is especially memorable as Jack Firebrace--who I quote in my title here--a friend and sort of foil character to the protagonist (Stephen Wraysford) played by Eddie Redmayne. Agree: American audiences may find all the British brogues a bit hard to follow without the subtitles.

While there is a palpable storyline and a good surprise at the end, BIRDSONG appeals more to the heart than to the head. It's quite a sad story, of course, but it avoids going too far in the direction of melodrama. It successfully incorporates some really huge themes: Love, forgiveness, loyalty, and others. There is also a great deal of WWI battle footage: BIRDSONG will probably appeal to most war film aficionados. Warning: Some really graphic scenes of carnage at the Somme and various other battles.

Part I shifts every few minutes from Wraysford's illicit 1910 love affair with the wife of a French business partner to his service in the British army between 1916-18. The two time settings are extremely well-synchronized: The directors and producers did a fine job of making the two stories into one. Part II, though it follows the same general pattern, is a little more of a straightforward, solidified story.

I haven't read Sebastian Faulks's original novel, but I've heard nothing but good things about it. It's probably a hard book to cinematize, but Masterpiece Theater did about the best job possible here.

Very good for what they had to work with

[imattheendofmytether · 8/10 · 30 January 2012]

Interesting backlash on this adaptation, this is the trouble when you try and put the subtlety of words in to pictures. I thought it was a great adaptation; I read the book and was pleased they got the main themes in (all bar the third storyline). I remember reading the book and not liking Stephen much and I didn't like him much here either and that continuity was pleasing. Yes some of it failed to get going, I thought the scene with the old lady and her daughter in the book was much more fraught and tense. But you know what, that was me reading into the work, you can't really do that when you are watching it. The graphics were a real weak link, the CGI battlefields were pitiful, lots of emotion as usual a distinct lack of blood or pain! With the centenary of the First World War coming up I can imagine they are holding some of their war cards close to their chest, but they could have put a little more effort into that. I enjoyed the acting and what they conveyed in a short space of time. I would have liked to have seen more character development of the soldiers, but hay we can't have everything. In all I thought it was a worthy piece of drama, and to all those who go on about the oral sex scene being unrealistic. Are you all experts in early 20th Century sexual practises?

Book vs. movie ...

[kosmasp · 8/10 · 6 September 2015]

Though I haven't read the book yet and I also had no idea this was split into two TV-movies. It came out as one single very long movie on DVD in Germany, so I watched it like that. It did appeal to me, especially acting, though some choices seemed weird. For a TV movie it is surprising I reckon that there is nudity. For regular TV I guess, but then again, we're way past that already.

The structure does seem fitting for a novel and it makes more sense in the book form (or at least seems to). Even without having read it, you can do more in the head of a reader than in a film. Still this seems more than decent enough to stand on its own, especially if the viewer is unaware of its source material.

very disappointing - read the book instead!

[jane_concannon · 6/10 · 30 January 2012]

I read the book Birdsong (the basis for this series) by Sebastian Faulks many years ago and really enjoyed it, particularly the sections about life in the trenches, which I found very gripping and evocative. Perhaps my memory is playing up, but I seemed to remember that this was the main point of the book, not the romance between Stephen and his french girlfriend, which was the main focus of this disappointing adaptation.

I am amazed how the production team managed to turn such a good book about WW1 into such a dull and plodding romantic drama. The dialogue was stilted, and although I am English and therefore used to the various English dialects, I struggled most of the time to understand what was being said so had to turn the volume up higher than normal. The acting was also poor - involving lots of staring mournfully at each other and simpering. I'm not sure if this was the actors' / director's faults or whether it was such a bad script that there was just no dialogue to work with. I've never watched a drama with so many long silences in it (except maybe the Twilight films); I'm sure this wasn't a feature of the book. I found myself getting very frustrated with the slow pace and kept wanting to reach for the FF button on the remote. I also found the casting of several of the characters very odd - especially the normally excellent Matthew Goode and Eddie Redmayne.

The one redeeming feature of the series was that it looked good.

In summary then, one to avoid and read the book instead.

Like the novel this is one to melt into

[huskydog101 · 9/10 · 29 January 2012]

I will begin by saying that I am a fan of the novel and that I entered into this adaptation with some trepidation. I need not have. It's not the same as the novel, as no TV/adaptation ever is, but it is true to it. It's true to the feel more so than sticking religiously to the story. Without giving too much away the scenes set in 1910 are thick and heavy with meaning and heat and sexual frustration. They're meant to be slow, lazy, decadent days; they are the kind of days you want to sink your teeth into. The colours are lush and rich. They contrast beautifully with the war scenes, with their bleached, washed out palette. This is an unfamiliar and alien land but visually it has it's own striking features. The first days of the Somme, the battle we're leading up to, were fought in heat and dust and dirt. The rain and the mud came later.

The main characters are not meant to be likable. They begin as self focused, blinkered lovers and end as broken and damaged souls. Their self obsession runs deep, they hurt those around them and they leave little left of one another. Both actors portray this well. They're short on time to go from strangers to obsessive lovers, not a problem the novel has, but the glances are weighty and they're both rather wonderful to look at, like the well bred, out of control aristocrats they portray, all lips, eyes and cheekbones.

It's slow, it's interwoven and it involves a certain amount of accepting that love, war and sex can lead to all sorts of madness but if you let yourself melt into it I don't think you'll be sorry. If you then read the novel you'll be less sorry still.

Chirrup

[YohjiArmstrong · 25 January 2012]

BIRDSONG came with lots of hype and plenty of critical acclaim but is utter tripe. It's a love story with a bisected narrative: in 1910 an innocent Englishman falls in love with the young wife of the owner of the French textiles factory where he works, whilst in 1916 he's become a cold-hearted officer involved in tunnelling operations on the Somme. The big problem is that the Sebastien Faulks novel it's based on is psychological whilst TV is visual. Screenwriter Abi Morgan deals with this by including marathon staring competitions between characters instead of dialogue or action; presumably the characters communicate by telepathy. There are no proper character introductions and precious little development, rendering most of the characters dull enigmas. All this staring also denudes the subplots of space. The dialogue is truly modern; everyone either mumbles or has an impenetrable regional accent, rendering subtitles a must. The lovers leap straight to oral sex (in 1910!) in a Bad Sex Award-winning performance. The protagonist also acts like an ass: drawing his revolver on a subordinate and psychologically tormenting a man caught sleeping on duty. If you mistake a glacial pace, opaque characters and pretty lighting for good TV drama then you'll love this. If not then I'd stay away.

a multi-sense

[yul-halogen · 7/10 · 28 December 2018]

I can never resist a romantic movie whose setting is wartime. This type of story is strangely popular as if you succeed in combing two of our gravest topics, love and life as long as you shoot a movie that tells a love story during the war. Normally, this kind of movie is attractive and Birdsong belongs to this category. Characters' love in this kind of movie is usually not so smooth and interrupted by many incidents. Then the war erupts. Lovers departed. These incidents grew to be life-long regrets. That's the schema of love in a war. Aware of the routine, I still can't help crying for this movie. Strictly speaking, Birdsong is only a mini-series rather than a movie. There is one upset about the rationality of the excuse Isabelle employs to leave Stephen. Why can't she inform him of her pregnancy first? Why must she leave without a word? Ow! Watching it is a multi-sense experience. Apart from the picture, the sound of tweets and warbles are elegant and beautiful and help to forward the plot and build the atmosphere. What's more, every time I saw the main characters making out, I got even more nervous than them(I don't know why!!!). So it's mentally exhiliarating stimulating as well.

Outstanding Gets my vote for Best Movie of 2012

[TexasRedge · 9/10 · 27 April 2013]

First let me say that there are not enough movies made about WWI. Thats a shame.

I didn't read the book, in fact I had never heard of this until one night in May of 2012, when I had promised to take my daughter to see "The Avengers" only to discover it was sold out when we got to the theater. We came back home and turned on the TV set and this movie was about to come on. Being a fan of WWI movies like "The Lost Battalion","Flyboys" and "The Trench", I thought that I'd give this movie a look.

I was so glad I watched this movie. I was glued to my TV for both nights that it was on. I found the story gripping and moving. I didn't want to get out of my chair (not even to go get a soda from the refrigerator). I found the cinematography to be absolutely beautiful. The battle scenes were very moving, I felt like I was down in that crawlspace with them. I know that most people will call this a love story, but I would call it a human story. Amazing Story about coming of age, falling in love and going to war. I cant praise this movie enough.

The acting is very well done, The Cinematography is amazing, the sets are very realistic, and the music score is good. I loved this movie. After watching a serious emotional movie like this, I wasn't in the mood to see cartoon-ish movie like "The Avengers" for a while.

I loved this movie I purchased a copy on DVD

Great on War, Swinish on Honour

[kickapoo2-512-55328 · 6/10 · 26 November 2012]

Earlier reviewers have covered most salient aspects of the movie. As a movie showing the cruelty of a most pointless war (that the UK & Empire should have stayed out of!), I would happily give it a 10, but there is no getting past the disgraceful, caddish behaviour of Stephen who was a guest in a home, where the host was most welcoming and foolishly trusting. The man has no honour. I need not say a word about the whore of a wife. What I do not understand is why the husband did not cripple Stephen for this outrage.

I was amused about an earlier critique who seems to believe that oral sex is something new. He needs to visit the erotic temples of Khajurao, India to see the act carved in stone repeatedly.

Poetic and romantic

[eapplebaum · 9/10 · 29 December 2012]

Although there was a lot left out of the original book, the storytelling in this TV miniseries was beautiful. I have been loving Eddie Redmayne for a while now, but after this film, I'm hooked! I am in love with him as was Isabelle. :) I loved the actress who played her as well. She reminded me of young Juliette Binoche. I thought it was a passionate and beautifully told story. The cinematography was spectacular and the massive destruction that WWII left was very well depicted here. More films should show how the Wealthy Upper classes acted as the Generals who would order the lower classes to put themselves on the frontlines basically for suicide missions to keep everyone else in good standing, including those who sat around thinking up brilliant ideas to have innocent young soldiers killed.

I've read the book as well

[adamblackshaw-14445 · 7/10 · 24 January 2024]

The book felt like Faulks really just wanted to write about WW1, which he does well, but someone whispered in his ear, 'Hey Seb, no one wants to read such a depressing topic. You gotta spice it up. Chuck in a love story. That'll do it'. And Faulks did more than that. He chucked in some spicy sex stuff which tbh is a tad awkward to read. Not to mention the jump from sideways glances to full on sex didn't make make sense to me in either the book or the film. Redmayne spends an inordinate amount of time staring vacantly and Poesy barely looks at him, let alone giving off a 'give it to me baby in the red room' vibe. Also, as good an actor Redmayne is, I'm surprised women seem to think he's terribly handsome. He looks kinda reptilian to me, and not in a good way. Posey on the other hand is incandescent. I could stare at her face all day.

The film cuts out what I think are some extraneous storylines in the book which actually improves it. And I think the love vs hate dichotomy that fuels the whole narrative is telegraphed much better as well. I still haven't completely wrapped my head around why Isobel left Stephen. I've read a number of thoughts on this and still am none the wiser. I suspect I might be a bit dim.

Weir's homosexuality was made clearer in the film but I'm not sure if this was even necessary, other than to make the story more contemporary. Firebrace was really the heart of the story but much more of a central character in the book, although he does deliver the key message in the film.

If you like Eddie Redmayne, and I do...

[hughman55 · 10/10 · 23 September 2014]

I just watched "Birdsong" on PBS. Didn't know anything about it other than it had Eddie Redmayne in it. His work in "Savage Grace", "The Good Shepherd", and "Les Miserable" sets him apart from other actors of his generation. As does his work here. He pretty much carries "Birdsong" on his shoulders singlehandedly which saved this fairly flawed film. It is a "made for TV product" but on some levels; acting, art direction, and cinematography, it's Oscar material - and then at others like; screenplay, and... well, really just the screenplay, it's a mess. That being said, the essence of what the movie is trying to convey is more than vaulted into the viewers mind and senses. This three hour "thing" I just watched is more of a performance (Redmayne) than a film. Fortunately that worked because Redmayne's performance is a powerful sensory overload that is moving and overwhelming. He could do the whole film without ever uttering a word and you'd walk away knowing; that war is hell, how it ruins people, how it makes heroes of some and distant memories of others, and that the carnage of war can come in the form of a letter from home as lethally as from a bomb or a bullet. I, personally, believe that Eddie Redmayne is one of the most gifted actors working today. It's in his eyes. Every wonderful, horrible, moment.

Stephen, the main character played by Eddie Redmayne, is in France on the front line during WWI. He is a harsh and aloof lieutenant. In one of the opening scenes, however, a soldier is fatally wounded and Stephen holds his hand as he is dying and asks him, "do you have a sweetheart", "what's her name", "hold on", "think of the last thing you said to her and the first thing you'll say when you see her again". He knows he'll never see his sweetheart again but maybe this soldier saw her beautiful face in his mind before he died instead of the hellscape he died in. The woman Stephen loved and lost scrolls through his mind constantly. His memory of her is what keeps him alive and believing there will be a tomorrow beyond the hell he is in now. Their story is told, you will see, in recollections and flashbacks during his worst times at war. Those memories are his only grasp on sanity in an insane place.

So, this is a war story, and we've seen them before. Right? Right. However, having visited the very moving and sobering Viet Nam War Memorial in Washington, DC, and the American Cemetery in Normandy, France (three times - one of the saddest and most beautiful places on Earth), as effective as those experiences were, they don't, and aren't meant to, convey the terror and madness experienced by those soldiers when they died. This film and its stars, come about as close as one can to showing us what it is like to hold a dying soldiers hand, to be mortally wounded, to see in your mind the faces of the ones you love as your life slips away from you, or how random life and death on the battlefield can be. It's in their eyes. It's especially in the eyes of Eddie Redmayne.

So, despite the fact that the script has real problems and the editing not much better (another reviewer mentioned that piano arpeggio "borrowed" from Avo Part's "Spiegle Im Spiegle"? Overdone does not come close to describing how much this plot device was overused), the film succeeds in many ways and on many levels. One of those is the acting from Eddie Redmayne, Joseph Mawle, and Richard Madden. They effectively establish the bond between men who share the life and death experiences of an ugly war. In particular, the storyline between Redmayne's character, Stephen Wraysford, and Joseph Mawle's character, Jack Firebrace, is powerful. It, more than the love story, in the fulcrum of this narrative. Their performances convey what a mind and body are put through when they're at war, and the inevitable carnage that will live in the memory forever of one of them and die with the other. Through their relationship, Stephen becomes a man.

And while I don't like doing this, I am going to take issue with some of the reviews I've read here that attack the lead actor based on his looks and acting skill. As for the looks, since when is a soldier supposed to look like anything more than an average guy? Because that's who goes to war. Average, regular, guys. Though I would also take issue with describing Redmayne as "average". He has a compelling on screen handsomeness that is undeniable. As for the swipes at his acting skills, especially that he is "wooden" (?), everyone is entitled to an opinion, I just gave mine, but some of these comments read like they were written by someone using an alias who was up for the lead role and didn't get it. Seriously. Eddie Redmayne can find a perfect pitch in any role he does. His filmography has a varied scope of characters that he has played with a realness that is unparalleled. While others "act", he "lives" the characters he plays on screen. This film is very much worth consideration.

Beautifully photographed but dull

[TheLittleSongbird · 5/10 · 29 May 2012]

I was expecting much from Birdsong. I had read the book three years ago for my English A Levels course, and found myself utterly transfixed by the poignant and gut-wrenching story. Since then, Sebastian Faulks' Birdsong has become one of my favourite books of all time. This series does have its good parts. It is photographed beautifully, exquisitely even, the scenery is wonderful in the whole part of the story before Stephen goes off to war, I liked the contrast between the lush pre-war scenes and the bleak colour palette of war itself the music is effective in its simplicity and there are two good performances, the scene-stealing Jack Firebrace of Joseph Mawle and the emotionally complex Jeanne of Marie-Josee Croze. Sadly, I never found myself convinced by the story and characters. This is not helped by a script that is largely incoherent, characters that excepting perhaps Jeanne are lifeless cardboard cut-outs(I know they are not likable characters to begin with but still there is a difference between that and the characters having no life at all) and sluggish pacing. I also found Eddie Redmayne and Clemence Posey miscast, Redmayne is handsome certainly but he was also wooden and uncharismatic while Posey has no chemistry with him and looks like twenty years younger than her novelistic counterpart. The story has scenes that are either condensed(naturally considering the time) or almost endlessly stretched out(not so much), but it was the lack of atmosphere and drama that really spoiled Birdsong. The intimate scenes between Stephen and Isabelle weren't that intimate to me as both actors looked in pain during those scenes, and the war scenes due to the poorly rendered battlefields weren't poignant, tense or gut-wrenching enough. Overall, does have some good things such as the beautiful photography, but the pacing and lack of drama made Birdsong rather dull in my opinion, sorry. 5/10 Bethany Cox

A captivating watch.

[Sleepin_Dragon · 9/10 · 20 December 2020]

It's fair to say that the book is an amazing read, it's almost unfair to deem it a page turner, but that's what it is, a book you don't want to put down.

This adaptation does the book justice, it's very much a film of two halves. The first, bright, full of hope and love, vibrant, the second harsh, grey and claustrophobic, full of loss.

The thread that runs the whole way through it, love, pure love, the power of friendship, camaraderie and the devastating feeling of loss.

The acting is first class, Eddie Redmayne of course steals it, he's one of those actors that has the ability to make you feel, without saying a word, it's a masterclass from him. Poessy and Mawle are amazing also.

Part one is great, the second is even better, it has some poignant scenes, including the men going out of the trenches.

One of those dramas that just envelopes you. 9/10.

watch it, its rather good.

[b-lawson23 · 9/10 · 23 January 2012]

I would recommend this to anybody that likes a good romance or historical drama.

I personal thought the storyline was fantastic and having not read the book i really want to read it now. the actors are brilliant and the two main actors have great chemistry and play the individual parts amazingly.

i think Philip Martin's work unbelievably good and i think this was one of his greatest works.

I want to be a director when i'm older and this is exactly the sort of i want to direct.

The drama reminded me of Atonment quite a lot, particularly the romance side of it anyway. The rest of the cast was superb as well. for example, you have Richard Madden and Joseph Mawle from a Game of Thrones.

Each character has different sides to them and they react differently to the events throughout the drama. in the scenes where Stephen is in the trenches you get a feeling of what is was like to be in the trenches back then, obviously unless you were there, we really have no idea of what the terrible things the brave soldiers must have seen.

The music for this drama is a beautiful piece with only piano and violins playing softly in the background, there is a lovely simplicity to it and i love it. The buildings and the clothes are wonderful and i deeply enjoy dramas where it is set in the early nineteen hundreds as you get a feel of what it was like back then.

I thought this was truly a master piece and i loved every second of it. It made me cry, in fact, i couldn't stop for a while... and i was left wanting more and wanting to find out what happens next...

If you enjoyed it. Then like me, you will have something to look forward to during the week.

thanks for reading... enjoy Birdsong

Beautiful, underrated

[takethefreedway · 9/10 · 15 November 2013]

I rarely review unless I love a movie and feel something has been unfairly rated due to some anomaly. Here I suspect the anomaly is that it will only be fully felt by people who have known something of this these level of intensity of love and death. Our world has become somewhat numbed to these things. I am lucky and unlucky enough to have had a meeting just like theirs and the story and intensity of it touched me very deeply. It is not just a matter of being open enough for these things to happen, but open enough to recognize their significance. And even in the absence of a war, for such a spiritual heart, as in the Bhagavad Gita, life will always be trench warfare on some level.

Both book and movie wonderful

[spheckma · 10/10 · 2 July 2012]

If you've read the book you may be one of those people who get it set in their mind 'as the book' and can't move beyond it, but the book is one thing and the movie another and if you've the ability to consider the worth of both then I believe you'll find value in both. In this review I deal with the movie as I loved the visuals of all of it from the setting of beautiful scenes with lush costuming and sets were magnificent. The costumes thought out each scene to the Nth degree in that they almost told a story them self. Eddie Redmayne costumes suit the scenes of the love story when the love story needs to have a special feel as do all the most extraordinary dress and skirts and blouses of Clémence Poésy. In addition she had a delicate beauty that was perfect for the role while Marie-Josée Croze was perfect as her not the not so beautiful sister, but never-the-less possessed her own sort of beauty with the need element of strength. The was scene were everything you'd expect of war in WWI in trenches that were literally a few feet apart with all the gore and horror and fear you'd expect.

Also, the costuming there was amazing as it wasn't exact, as it wouldn't have been under the circumstances, but for the most part it was nearly as perfect as I'd want. Now I'd like to take a step back and talk about Eddie Redmayne. I'd not heard of him until I saw the name attached to the actor who would play Marius in the upcoming version of 'Les Mis'so I looked him up, found a movie he was in to watch and came away from seeing it wondering why him in either this story or in Les Mis. Suffice it to say he does not have you classical good looks. BUT, after watching the BBC version of 'Birdsong' he won me over. He is one outstanding actor, with the unbelievable subtle expression he makes using not only his entire face, but just his eyes alone. He was, simply put, beyond belief and will be perfect as Marius, but back to his playing Stephen Wraysford. He play the full range of the character to perfection. I even found myself finding him a beautiful man even though not typically so ... All things considered it may not be a perfect copy of the book, but it stands on its own and that's what counts.

Frustrating. A wasted opportunity.

[aliciadipesto · 3/10 · 31 January 2012]

What a wasted opportunity. That should have been a fantastic 2 part drama. But it so wasn't. I could have spent that 3 hours ironing. Or sleeping. Or staring deeply into my lovers eyes trying to find the words to... to.. to... OH FOR GOODNESS SAKE!

I never got around to reading the book and the trailer looked brilliant. After all that I have to give the post production house who made the trailer 11 out of 10 for editing and sound mixing as it really turned water into wine. What a shame the actual film didn't live up to its promise.

Can't knock the production, the production design, the CGI, any of that. The acting, well I guess they did as well as they could with what was probably only 5-10 pages of script and the rest was just mooning at each other, God it was boring. I wouldn't have minded it as much if the Redmayne and Poesy had any chemistry at all but there was none, it was like watching....well it was like watching 2 actors staring at each other for 3 hours. And that sex scene - even in 2012 post-watershed, I found the sight of oral sex barely moments after their first kiss a bit much. I have no doubt in 1910, Wraysford would have been on the receiving end of a belt round the head if he'd attempted that back then.

No wonder she went off and had a baby and he never knew about it; they barely spoke to each other for the whole show. You can't have a relationship based on smouldering looks. She left him, had a baby in secret and died and the whole time he just looked like he needed the bathroom and was trying to control himself. Yawn.

The timing was unfortunate - if it had been on after Celebrity Masterchef or something banal the UK population might have been more forgiving but being scheduled directly after the The Midwife, full of snappy dialogue, first class acting, brilliant production design, good pacing and dry humour, its faults were even more glaring.

Oh well, looks like Tim Bevan better get back to what he's best at, more Johnny English or some such nonsense.

Life in a trench with phenomenal memories of past

[riteshpandit · 10/10 · 25 June 2017]

It's a good love story during the world war 1. I love the combination and the way it has been delivered is awesome, Acting of Eddie(Stephen Wraysford) was fantastic as usual, and Clémence Poésy(Isabella)what a beauty! Highly recommended for the people who like love stories and War(too), watch patiently and enjoy.

A Song of Love and War

[bryangary65 · 10/10 · 13 January 2021]

Just beautiful

Tugs at your heart from the opening scenes till the last, with some lovely performances from Posey, Madden & Croze amongst many

Led by a tortured Eddie Redmayne brilliantly supported by the under rated Joseph Mawle

Birdsong is an excellent treatment of WWI and a young man coming of age.

[Camargue · 10/10 · 2 May 2012]

Birdsong provided realistic insight into the horror (and tedium) of WWI; much less "glamorous" than WWII, but clearly equal in the scale of human suffering. Add to that the frustration of a young man coming of age and there is little raw emotion left.

Eddie Redmayne IS Stephen Wraysford! A marvelous WWI officer; young, idealistic, and devoted to his men, he understood what they were going through, the hopelessness of war, and that, in the final analysis, all that matters is loving and touching! Years of suffering had infused Stephen with wisdom beyond his years.

His time as a young lover occupied an exaggerated place in his life because he was completely enamored with Isabelle, yet had such a short time with her! He was familiar with paid sex with prostitutes, but his heart belonged to Isabelle. Sadly, he did not understand that a woman who was weak enough to succumb to an affair was not a good candidate for depth of commitment. She was Stephen's entire "world," but her lack of self-esteem prevented her from understanding that her worth to him was enormous.

The bunker scenes with Joseph Mawle (Firebrace) and Richard Madden (Weir) and Eddie Redmayne are absolute magic. It is easy to see why they are rated as up and coming stars! They hit just the right notes as young men who were stuck in the war effort and were trying to do the best they could, while wanting it to be over and to just "go home." Oddly, Stephen could actually "go home" when he had leave since he had lived close to this battle area of France before the war.

Stephen Wraysford was irreparably changed by the war and was forced to compromise his remaining years. His physical needs were met, but his emotional needs were never addressed; they could not be.

If the war had not happened, one can imagine a long and satisfactory (if more shallow) life for Stephen Wraysford, involved in the manufacture of fabric, and of finding love, and if his future was to be in France or back in England. But, the war did happen, and those four years of horror continued to run roughshod over the remainder of his days.

This BBC adaptation is a high-class production.

[Mobithailand · 9/10 · 22 April 2016]

I have no idea what The BBC TV movie, 'Birdsong' cost to make, but I'm sure it was a fraction of the cost of the average Hollywood movie. 'Birdsong' is a 3-hour drama, based on a best-selling book of the same name and is about the horrors of the 2nd World War, interspersed with a lingering, tragic love story involving the lead character. There are a number of trench warfare action scenes, and I have to say that the BBC has done incredibly well on what must have been an infinitesimal budget compared to the average Hollywood war movie budget. I am not saying that the BBC war scenes were superior to Hollywood's versions of WW1 warfare, but they more than held their own.

This BBC adaptation was, in this reviewer's opinion, a high-class production.The characters are finely drawn and believable and we are comfortable with listening to the French characters speak English, as it is clear that they were all highly educated and the story required that they spoke English for the benefit of their 'English guests'. They even occasionally lapsed into their own tongue, (with appropriate sub-titles), when the occasion demanded it.

Sure, Birdsong is a slow moving drama, and may lack some of the 'commercial' impact that a Hollywood movie might provide, but it certainly has its tense, dramatic moments; both in the trenches and in the French châteaus - and boudoirs! Indeed, the hero – or some may say anti-hero – comes back, seemingly from the dead - on no less than two occasions, and surely there was enough blood and guts, loss of life and dramatic moments to satisfy most viewers. It is a love story; a man's love of a woman who doesn't belong to him; and is set against the background of a terrible war; amongst the horrific battlefields of the Somme, Verdun, and elsewhere.

The BBC drop the ball again

[Leofwine_draca · 5/10 · 6 February 2012]

You know, the Great War is the one I find most moving in all of history. Just the thought of those young men, trapped in mires of mud, being shot to pieces and blasted to bits is enough to get my chest heaving. So when I heard the BBC were adapting the Sebastian Faulks novel BIRDSONG for a two-part adaptation, I was looking forward to it.

Oh dear. Like the Christmastime version of GREAT EXPECTATIONS, they've dropped the ball again with a production that has too many flaws to be taken seriously. Firstly, the three hour running time is far too long. Important passages are condensed (no doubt due to the budgetary constraints of the battle sequences) and other scenes are s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d out so that they become endlessly dull.

Eddie Redmayne is a superb actor given the right role - see him in THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH for an example of this. But he's utterly miscast here, far too young to be playing a world-weary guy, and he just doesn't have the gravitas to pull it off. Maybe in a decade's time, but certainly not now. I can't really fault the lovely Clemence Poesy playing opposite him, but Redmayne alone is enough to put you off.

It's all about characters quietly staring at each other for minutes on end interspersed with mad, passionate sex. But the central character is so selfish and conceited that that's what it is - just sex, not romance. The other half of the running time concerns the battle scenes, and boy are these bad. Not only are they repetitive - how many times does Redmayne supposedly die only to come back? - but they ring hollow. Hurried scenes of soldiers scribbling letters to loved ones the night before a battle does not make their later deaths emotional, it just reeks of contrivance and an artificial attempt to make the viewer care. Oh, and it turns out Redmayne's a coward, too.

It says something when a supporting actor (Joseph Mawle) gives by far the best performance of them all. I've actually had the Faulks novel sitting on my shelf unread for years - like so many books - but I'm going to be in no hurry to dig it out until memories of this have long faded. As for Abi Morgan, the scriptwriter, who previously brought the above-average miniseries THE HOUR to our screens - what went wrong?

Stunning movie

[robyn1999 · 10/10 · 19 August 2019]

Visually this is a gorgeous movie. The actors are fantastic. I do enjoy the writing as well. I think it's safe to say this movie is on par with the novel. The actors really do make it a perfect film.

War, Romance, Fear, and Hope

[bradag · 8/10 · 5 April 2020]

I enjoyed this 2 part mini-series. Clémence Poésy and Marie-Josée Croze are beautiful and very talented actresses. Eddie Redmayne is a great actor. I love the history of WWI.