Tolkien (2019) User Reviews (272)

Gentle, honest and touching telling of Tolkien's life

[Fudge-3 · 7/10 · 4 May 2019]

Tolkien recounts the defining people and moments of the author's life.

Since the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit movies interest has increased in Tolkien himself. While this film is no adventure it is both funny and touching as the subject evolves like one of the characters in his stories. This is interesting and I did enjoy it.

I'd have preferred it if the timeline had stretched a little bit further and covered more of his life than it does. The flash-forwards were well done up to that point.

I liked, 'Get off the lawn!'

Good - But Not Long Enough

[Rainey-Dawn · 8/10 · 9 January 2020]

The film is satisfying for the most part - I just wished there was another hour tagged onto the ending which would show us how he created some of his legendarium.

The film mainly focuses on his friendships and romance with Edith in school - very little of the war was shown. Also showed his relationships with a couple of his teachers.

You will easily see in the film how things connected to his books - hidden references as well obvious ones.

Very good movie if you like biographies, romances and/or Tolkien.

8/10

An inspirational story but decent film.

[cruise01 · 7/10 · 13 August 2019]

Tolkien (3.5 out of 5 stars).

Tolkien is a beautifully done biographical drama film about a famous fantasy writer J.R.R. Tolkien who went on to write The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings series. It touched the base when him and his brother lost their mother to some illness. J.R.R. then went to a school where he met a few other teenagers that he did not get along with. Until, eventually they become close friends. There bond grows stronger over the years and they inspire each other to make a difference. He meets Edith (Lily Collins) who he falls in love with. He gets separated when he is drafted into World War 1.

The plot is pretty decent for a biographical film about J.R.R. Tolkien. The movie was a bit slow in the second act with Tolkien and his fellowship friends talking about stories. It could have been better handled. The plot is inspirational. Tolkien and his friends no matter how often they fight with each other, they will always be brothers. Tolkien and Edith fall deeply in love until they go on different paths. Years later, they come across each other again.

Nicholas Hoult is great as Tolkien. Lily Collins was also good as Edith. The music score by Thomas Newman is beautifully done. The direction delivers the eerie tone during the World War 1 scenes. Tolkien suffering from an illness. And trying to find his friends. When they are attacked. He witnesses most of his man killed in combat. Which he feels like he is isolated and he starts seeing visions of dragons out of flamethrowers. Or the aftermath smoke from the explosions looking like a dark lord Sauron. Which he uses his experience to write a fantasy story. While his one focus theme is the journey that everyone goes too and the experiences they face.

Overall, Tolkien is a pretty fair film. The plot is a bit inspirational and emotional with the journey Tolkien experiences. Sadly, the film suffers from an uneven pace in the second act of the movie. The performances and music score is fantastic.

beautiful

[Kirpianuscus · 5 August 2019]

...because it represents more than a biopic. Because it gives a bitter - poetic portrait of familiar things. From friendship to bitter choices, from love to discover of vocation, from war to the most significant small things defining you. Because it is real well acted and has inspired script and propose a version of Tolkien ' s life more touching and precise than I expect. A film about war and passion and friendship and love , seductive for the game of nuances and for a sort of...magic. And, sure, Nicholas Hould seems the most wise option for the roles of real, real special writers.

Entertaining and poetic

[FrenchEddieFelson · 6/10 · 24 June 2019]

A story as romantic as biographical of the first three decades of J.R.R. Tolkien, who is best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion: his childhood and adolescence just before the first world war and his decisive encounters (Edith Bratt who will become his wife, the professor Joseph Wright who will turn his mentor and help him to to enter to the University of Oxford, and his friends with whom he will form a brotherhood, or even a fellowship). The analogies with his novels are obvious: the Ringwraiths a.k.a. the Nazgûl between the German trenches of the Bay of the Somme, or even Sauron on his black horse and his huge sword. The film portrays also the manifold sources of inspiration such as Nordic cultures / languages or operas like Der Ring des Nibelungen composed by Richard Wagner. The photography, the Computer-Generated Imagery and the costumes are excellent. The movie reflects reality more or less closely (the audience shall then dissociate the real from the fantasy) but is globally poetic. 6/7 of 10.

The film is aimless...

[CubsandCulture · 6/10 · 11 May 2019]

The film's main problem is it doesn't want to be about what it is about. The film is largely a series of episodes of how various things (events, people, other works etc.) influenced the Middle Earth texts. But the film resists trying to draw 1 to 1 parallels between Tolkien's life and his fictional world.The film goes out of its way to avoid allegory. This is somewhat admirable given Tolkien's famous distaste for allegory but at the same time there's too much of the Middle Earth texts in the film to avoid making the connections. And the film clearly wants you to make those connections. This split aim makes the film have no real narrative drive. I do like how sometimes the narrative unspecified symbolism allows you to read several aspects of Tolkien's mythology into a scene. There was 2-3 times an ambiguous reference to either Sauron or Morgoth.

While the film is in the batting average for historical accuracy for Hollywood it weirdly ignores obvious things to discuss. The film greatly downplays Tolkien's Catholicism to the point where he doesn't seem any more devout than a random guy from that time period. Worse the film spends a lot of time on his courtship with Edith and the film just doesn't use the bit about Tolkien proposing at 12:01 on his 21st birthday. This makes Tolkien a less complex figure for removing his stubbornness.

However much the film's story is lacking I love the direction-cinematography in this film. There is a ton of very provocative and lyrical images that feel more Middle Earth to me than the weaker parts of the Jackson films. The film is handsome and despite the narrative drive being missing it doesn't get bogged down. It plays out like a standard coming of age tale, abet a more artistic one.

With all that being said Hoult's performance is easily the best part of the film and I wish it was in a much better film. I don't think he will ever top R but this a very touching naturalistic take on an icon.

Tokien provides a solid story with some unnecessary distractions

[Wellenstock · 7/10 · 24 July 2019]

The story and the excellent cinematography alone make for agood film. For some reason they forced in elements that had the effect of pandering to the weak minded. The film would have been much improved if these elements were left out.

It's enough to see a fellowship develop in the prep school and the visual scenes of WWI without CG of dragon silhouettes and ghosts in gas clouds. We audience members can make connections on our own and guess at what inspired him. I doubt he was thinking about dragons while seeing an actual flamethrower used in warfare.

The real story was in the details and they were good.

A beautiful and moving film

[alever-46823 · 9/10 · 5 May 2019]

I am a huge Tolkien fan and after reading some of the critics reviews I was a bit wary of seeing this film. I do not know which film the "critics" have seen but from their conclusions I do not recognise this film. I have literally just left the cinema, I found it so moving that I found myself in floods of tears. Beautifully acted, and set against the backdrop of WW1 the sense of loss and the harrowing reality of what war is came across in such depth. I loved the focus on language and the weight it can carry, It made me feel that words are in their own right living creatures. This is one of the few films that has not just entered my brain but is also in my heart. Please go and see this film whether you are a Tolkien fan or not, it is truly captivating.

A well-intended, yet muddled look at the acclaimed author's legacy

[MrDHWong · 6/10 · 20 June 2019]

Tolkien is a biopic about the early life of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy/The Hobbit author J.R.R. Tolkien. Starring Nicholas Hoult in the lead role, it is a well-intended, yet muddled look at the acclaimed author's legacy.

As a young man, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (Nicholas Hoult) befriends a group of three outcasts at school who help him to find his place in the world and support him in his creative endeavours. Over time, John meets Edith Bratt (Lily Collins), a young pianist with whom he falls in love and becomes his muse. Eventually, however, World War I breaks out and John is sent off to fight in the trenches at the Battle of the Somme, separating him from some of his friends and the love of his life.

Despite a solid premise, Tolkien ultimately struggles to elevate its intriguing subject matter above merely being another outcast author. The film chooses to omit important details about Tolkien, such as his strong Christian faith influencing his writings, instead opting for a more fantasy driven approach. In addition to this, the pacing is painfully slow most of the time, showcasing some of the least interesting aspects of what inspired Tolkien to write his novels in the first place. With that said, the film is at least nice to look at thanks to some creative cinematography during Tolkien's musings and Nicholas Hoult's well-acted performance in the title role. It's a shame that so much overall effort was put in to producing so little of interest.

I rate it 6/10

Inevitably insufficient, but offers the milieu in which JRR found himself well enough

[jrarichards · 9/10 · 5 January 2020]

Given the extraordinary power, popularity and (literally) "magic" of both books and movies, we are obviously in need of explorations of Tolkien's life and creativity, even as we know that you can't make a film out of a biographical book (of which there are several in this case - each of 300-400 pages), and even as we know that a person of brilliance and imagination flowing through the pen does not necessarily (though may) have a brilliant and imaginative life.

Ultimately, Tolkien was a language expert at British Universities (notably Oxford), though his early life (to which this film devotes itself) was not dull, even if it was not untypical for the late 19th and early 20th centuries in featuring imperially-motivated travel/adventure, disease, death and bereavement, uncomfortable schooldays and - of course, in time - war with a capital W.

Indeed, one of the greatest achievements of this work by Cypriot-born Finnish Director Dome Karukoski is its instinctive, near-visceral feel for the times. Edwardian mores are injected into the content, and they go so perfectly hand in hand with omnipresent scientific, but also pre-Raphaelite and Arts&Crafts-type influences, history and modernity coming up against one another. Maybe the movie is almost trite in doing this, but it seems meaningful to suggest that the Hobbit, LOTR and the rest were near-inevitabilities for the boy and man we learn a little about, in the time and place and circumstances he found himself.

Tolkien always denied that his work was over-influenced by World War One, even if none of us out here really accept that - yet the film (which the Tolkien estate and family had no truck with) does indeed build a kind of case that every aspect of the author's life pushed him through to what he achieved. Surely the War was in there, but so was young friendship, young love, loss of parents at a tender age, and a strong urge to become learned and expert in subjects that mattered to the man.

An ironic conclusion from this would be that the works were great, not just because the man was great, but because his times were. Of course, WWI was hateful in almost every way - as this movie makes abundantly clear - yet men (including several I myself spoke to) said "I wouldn't have missed it for the world, for the camaraderie". And in the end, both of Tolkien's great works are stories of loyalty and companionship in the face of suffering and danger.

The centrepiece here - though really only sketched out rather impressionistically - is the so-called "Tea Club, Barrovian Society" of 4 (we see 4, though there were a few more) clever and imaginative boys who pushed the artistic and behavioural boundaries just a little, in the actually very serene and safe surroundings of the cafe at Barrows exclusive department store in Birmingham (England).

Just re-read that last line in all its enigmatic, eccentric and ridiculous glory, then imagine the same people (still not much more than boys) in the Trenches or (in the case of Christopher Wiseman) in the Royal Navy. Only Tolkien and Wiseman came back, and Tolkien not entirely "whole" for some time.

The acting in the parts of the boys here is quite good enough, and Derek Jacobi works his usual magic as linguist Prof. Joseph Wright (in real life an academic of humble origins who got to study at Heidelberg but walked there from Antwerp in order to save the fare money!)

But this whole piece is so somehow "instinctive" that individual acted parts don't seem to matter too much. Our star in the form of "Cumberbatch Junior" Nicholas Hoult does not seem to give too much away, and certainly looks too young for the later scenes; but the wonderful, devout and devoted love portrayed between the young Ronald and his Edith (played by the ever-mesmerising Lily Collins) is well-done and certainly has its on-screen chemistry. Sad that the truth had to be departed from in places - the couple had already married (in March 1916) by the time Tolkien left to fight in World War One. He had loved her from the age of 16 on (when she was already 19). This is somehow significant, as it is widely felt that the Middle Earth books are not great at dealing with male-female love. Actually, I in the end beg to differ, as I think the developing love between Faramir and Eowyn in LOTR is actually one of the most touching and meaningful portrayals I know of. And since that was love on the back of loss, wounds, war and hopelessness one wonders how autobiographical that too might have been...

Perhaps we don't actually need a film to offer us the basic biographical details, but in terms of mood-setting this work is - for me at least - far more than adequate, and in fact rather entrancing. The fact that we see moments of battlefield visions of black riders, orcs and so on as our hero suffers trench fever is a bit of a turn-off, but for me by no means enough to ruin the film.

THEY DON'T MAKE MEN LIKE THIS ANY MORE

[stevesky-15087 · 7/10 · 31 March 2022]

Tolkien was a genius. That's all you need to know. Not having the best start in life and having to cope with the horrors of life in the trenches it is even more incredible that he survived to become one of the greatest writers to have ever lived. That is Tolkien. The film however is a different beast and whilst an entirely watchable and credible movie, we'll acted and well written, it's just not that interesting. Not to say Tolkien's life was boring, far from it. You just have this overwhelming desire to be watching the fantasies inside his head that pepper the movie more than the biopic that is this film. It does however paint a picture of privileged classes and their education in the early 1900s that our American friends will find most quaint. In summary a reasonable film and a story that needed to be told, but it never really gets going. A remarkable brain inside a less than remarkable film.

If you liked Imitation Game / Theory of Everything then you will like this too

[Trapista · 10/10 · 5 May 2019]

I really-really loved this film, I was engaged all the time! I liked discovering how things in Tolkien's early life actually influenced the book itself.

The scenes are so well crafted, there is a lot of attention to details and the cinematography is absolutely top quality, very atmospheric. But this would be nothing without a good script and good acting. And I loved both, the two main actors' performance is really good, I was "with them" all the time.

If you liked "Imitation Game" or "Theory of Everything" then you will like this too. Highly recommended.

history of J RR Tolk family.

[ksf-2 · 7/10 · 30 March 2021]

The only name I recognized in the cast was Colm Meaney, who everyone knows was O'Brien in the Star Trek films. And of course Kallum Tolkien, who must be a descendant of the main subject. Nick Hoult (from the X Men) stars as J. Tolkien himself, an orphan, who created the realm of the Hobbit, followed by the Lord of the Ring Trilogy, and its stories and occupants. The old story of Good versus Evil. According to wikipedia dot com, Tolkien was a good friend of C. S. Lewis, another writer who created an entire world of escape, right around the time of world war one. He served for a few years, but was quite sickly by the end, and was given a disability pension, according to wiki. He had based some of the hobbit on his travels to the mountains while on vacation. Forming a literary club with his college buddies, he was determined to finish his degree before serving as a soldier. And always writing.. creating languages and detailed, far-away places. With adventure and purpose. It's good. We feel the mystery and creativity that he experienced growing up. Directed by cyprus and finnish Dome Karukoski, who had just directed Tom of Finland. Story by David Gleeson and Stephen Beresford.

Great acting, shame about the accuracy

[brucelevitan-61732 · 3/10 · 15 May 2019]

One knows that any "biopic" can never stick 100% to the facts about the people it portrays; but one hopes it will stick close enough to be true to them. When you make a "biopic" I guess it's a bit like reconstructing a jigsaw but with fewer pieces than the original. So what you have to do is change some of the details on some of the pieces in the hope that when you view the whole thing the picture is more or less the same as the original. However, if you tamper with too many of the pieces the resulting picture won't be a true reflection. In my view this movie has erred too much to that end. This is a really well made movie with great acting. It's very watchable and moving. But, for me, spoilt by the too many changes effect that I just described. Here are just a few examples (NB they include spoilers). When Tolkien goes to university, there's a scene where he confronts his mates and says he's been "sent down" for not doing well enough in his Mods. This never happened. True, he didn't do too well, but he was never in any danger of being sent down.

In the movie, the way he gets around this is by wooing the professor of linguistics, Joe Wright. At first the professor will have nothing to do with him, but is eventually won over and this ends with a scene where Tolkien starts to attend his lectures, having successfully transferred from Classics to Linguistics. In reality, Tolkien did indeed attend some of Wright's lectures... before the Mod exams just mentioned. His move to linguistics was at the suggestion of the Dean of Exeter College, and when he did transfer he was put under the care of a Canadian lecturer Kenneth Sissam, assistant to the Professor of English A.S. Napier. Wright's impact on Tolkien was great, but came much earlier on; and Tolkien's wooing of Wright never happened.

Then there is his relationship with Edith Bratt, who he comes to love and marry. In the movie he makes a last moment declaration to her before going to war, and asks her to cut off her engagement to another man (and they kiss, of course). In fact they declared their love for each other in 1909, got engaged in 1913 and were married shortly before he went to war. Edith was briefly engaged to another, but Tolkien went to see her in Cheltenham to ask her to marry him (in 1913). The throwing of sugar lumps onto people's hats, as depicted in the film, did happen though (although not quite in the way illustrated in the movie). Father Francis' ban on Tolkien seeing Edith was, however, accurate.

Now we come to the harrowing experience during the war where the sick young Tolkien desperately searches for his friend G.B. Smith in the trenches and out on the battlefield. In reality they did meet up a few times during the Somme campaign, but when Tolkien was taken sick with trench fever he was actually 12 miles behind the Lines at Beauval, was almost immediately hospitalised and removed even further from the front. The search for his friend simply never happened.

I could quote other similar disparities. What emerges is a film that has deliberately over dramatised and over romanticised his story to the extent that what emerges is at best a "rose tinted" version of the real man. Tolkien did not like the idea of biographies, and would be turning in his grave at this mess I think. What really saddens me is that most people who see this movie won't read the excellent Humphrey Carpenter biography, and will take this movie version as the "truth".

Enjoy a romantic bio of Tolkien's early years, and get a hint of his inspirations.

[JohnDeSando · 6 May 2019]

"A safe fairyland is untrue to all worlds." J.R.R. Tolkien

Although the name Tolkien conjures up thoughts of fantastical tales about hobbits, rings, and magic of the highest order, there's little magic and much reality in the new biography, Tolkien. Yet there is much romance, in fact a genial part of an otherwise difficult life.

In reality this story of J.R.R. Tolkien (Nicholas Hoult), up until he becomes well-known for his fantasies while he is bringing up four children and loving his "elfin" princess, Edith (Lily Collins), has a magic of its own. At the same time, it acknowledges the serious shortcomings of an impecunious genius struggling to be heard in the din of class restrictions and WWI.

Besides the delightful early courtship of Tolkien and Edith, the best romance in a long time as far as I am concerned, is the romance of his boy's club. It started before the four culturally gifted young men enter Oxford and Cambridge and goes through the war, which decimated their little intellectual "fellowship." The support they gave each other, the companionable joy, has rarely been so lovingly captured on film. Lamentably, the boys never develop fully as characters, perhaps because of time restrictions.

Satisfying is his discovery by rhetoric professor Wright (Derek Jacobi), who eventually acknowledges Tolkien's genius with language. For those skeptical about the importance of education, watch Tolkien come alive in Wright's hands.

Although these early years seem accurately reported, the joy of this film is in seeing the slow but inexorable growth from a small boy raptly listening to his mother's fantastical readings to a young man doodling heroic figures on horses and scratching out inchoate stories that will give birth to some of the most influential literature in the Western world.

"If you really want to know what Middle-earth is based on, it's my wonder and delight in the earth as it is, particularly the natural earth." Tolkien

A quiet film that takes its time

[nancyldraper · 7/10 · 29 September 2021]

The works of Tolkien are seminal and this film tries to pull gently from his first 24 years the threads that may have begun the weave of those later writings. It is also a story of the love within a brotherhood. And, the love of Tolkien for Edith Bratt, played beautifully by Nicholas Hoult and Lily Collins. It's a quiet film with beautiful photography, music and performances and it takes its time to interlace the emotions and images, so this is not a movie for the restless. I give this film a 7 (good) out of 10. {Biographical Drama}

Not bad

[neil-476 · 7/10 · 10 May 2019]

Orphaned as a child and brought up by a priest who is well-meaning but possibly somewhat out of touch with youngsters, Tolkien makes close friends at school and university, and falls in love.

I don't know how faithful this is to Tolkien's life. Taken at face value, it is a tolerable biography of his early years, making the importance of his friendships clear, the rather chequered path of his romance, and signposting, but never overdoing, the events which influenced his writing.

The performances are good and the film holds the attention.

It finished where I actually hoped it would start

[alwayslateee · 7/10 · 4 May 2019]

I have no intention to degrade or under-appreciate the movie itself, it was good. It follows Tolkien education and formation, as well as his love life. I believe it was inspiring, especially when the four boys got together and studied together, it somehow pushed my consciousness to be more dedicated to studying or adopt an attitude of constant improvement.

However.. and perhaps this turns out to be a personal preference (or call it fantasy if you like), I was expecting more of the writing itself, the post publishing life, his years as a professor. I was expecting more of his research, of his dedication, of his world building, of his... but some people find these things boring. Perhaps LOTR fans will relate.

From this point of view, I would rate the movie 1/10, because the actual writing that happens takes two to three minutes of the movie, which is sad, but I still want to believe the movie was quite good and that it catches key moment of Tolkien life that had a certain impact on his inspiration and world crafting.

For me, it just ended unexpectedly where I actually hoped it would start. Looking forward for part 2. (cries in Elvish)

It's a story about love, fellowship and loss

[jyrkilahde · 10/10 · 5 May 2019]

A beautiful story about JRR Tolkien's growth from an orphan boy into a writer, professor and a husband. A plausible explanation how a mind so unlike any other before could develop. Horrors of the Great War frame the story, but it is not a war movie. It is a movie about friendship, love and strong feelings. The visual outcome is dramatic, and I liked th

Doesn't do anything

[siderite · 6/10 · 26 October 2019]

Imagine a story about the man who singlehandedly invented Anglo fantasy, who wrote Lord of the Rings, invented at least one language, influenced all fantasy computer games ever made. What would you put in it? The feelings of fellowship to his closest friends? The heart shattering love for a woman that seems more magical and alive than any other? The battles he fought? The evil that seemed to permeate the world and that had to be fought, regardless of consequences? Maybe his thoughts as he wrote his works?

Well, this movie tries to do that, only it doesn't go anywhere. His friendship with his colleagues is the most prominent thing, but without presenting anything that made that friendship strong except getting drunk with his mates and talking geek. Then there is the love for his lodging mate Edith, which he ends up marrying, also episodic and chaste. His children only appear at the end. The war is shown from a fever induced quest in the trenches of the battle of the Somme to find his friend. The film moves from him almost being expelled to him being a university professor in a few scenes. The story ends just as he starts writing The Hobbit, so his writing years are not even in this. The most personal conflict you see in the film is when he punches his friend and immediately apologizes.

It's not that the movie wasn't accurate, I have no idea if it was, but it felt as if Tolkien was a really really boring man and the most exciting part of his life, even dramatized and stitched together was still really boring. There are no bits in the film that made me feel anything for anyone. Capitalizing on the Tolkien name, this movie goes nowhere.

A movie honoring Tolkien, done with gentleness

[bpododo · 10/10 · 5 May 2019]

This are just a couple of my thoughts, not an actual review.

I can't believe how tender the portrayal of male characters was, including Tolkien himself. And more specifically his friend group in his youth. I mean these men loved each other, cared for each other, cried and laughed together. Tell me one major movie in recent years with so many male leads who are not afraid of being so vulnerable sentimentally with each other. I'm honestly listening, I want to watch. The first one that comes in my mind is of course LOTR but you know who wrote it.

The main theme that played whenever he started forming thoughts about Middle-earth was amazing. I could honestly tell each time a new idea was forming in his mind.

I can't actually believe they included the time when he stole a bus in Oxford.

And for the matter Oxford as a whole and the conversations he had with his linguistics professor.

I absolutely adore how interested everyone seemed in his ideas and that no one laughed whenever he started talking in whatever language he chose to. Be it latin or old english or the elven languages. I have never been able in my life to talk freely about this side of myself, or my interest in languages or fantasy without being mocked or laughed at. It was so nice a change of pace to see him appreciated for his interests.

I swear everyone in the theater cried towards the end of the movie when he meets with the mother of one of his deceased friends and they decide to publish his poetry.

I love how they portrayed the idea of the nazgul, sauron and the balrog forming in his mind during the war scenes. Absolute amazing.

And of course Edith. God I love how they show that she was a major influence in his writing. And that basically the entire Lord of the Rings is a love letter to her love for the Ring of the Nibelungs.

Enchanting

[Sergiodave · 7/10 · 1 May 2020]

A beautiful movie looking at Tolkien's life from childhood to the great war.Nicholas Hoult as Tolkien is superb, as is all the cast, and the direction and speed of the film are just right. I loved the way the film explored his love of languages, which is of course so essential to Middle-Earth. You don't need to be a lover of Tolkien to enjoy this film, just a lover of film.

Engaging Biopic

[Pairic · 8/10 · 6 May 2019]

Tolkien: Not quite the romantic warrior professor but certainly all three of the preceding in part. Tolkien had a tough early life, falling into impecunity, his mother had to move with J.R.R. (Harry Gilby as the young Tolkien) and his brother from a rural idyll to the satanic mills and factories of Birmingham, an early model for Mordor no doubt. Then getting excessively MisLit, his mother (Laura Donnelly) dies and he is fostered by an elderly rich lady and along with his brother gets scholarships to an exclusive school. His family's benefactor, always working behind the scenes, is Father Morgan (Colm Meaney), benevelovent but steely in his determination when Tolkien's romance with Edith threatens his chances of getting an Oxford scholarship. Morgan may have been the inspiration for Gandalf.

At school Tolkien founds a Fellowship with other artistically minded students bur the Great War will wreak havoc on that brotherhood. The film cuts between Tolkien's earlier life and the trenches of the Somme. This is literally Hell, a real Mordor. The adult J.R.R .(Nicholas Hoult) is on a (perhaps allegorical) quest to the Front to find one of the Fellowship who is missing in action. He passes through mud holes full of bodies and fever stricken imagines that a german with a flamethrower is a dragon. The film suggests many inspirations for his books, Edith (Lily Collins) as an Elven Princess, his mother's reading tales of dragons when he was a boy, the War, his schooldays. A great influence on him was the philologist Professor Wright (Derek Jacobi) who won him over to the study of Old English and Gothic languages. Directed by Dome Karukoski from a screenplay by David Gleeson and Stephen Beresford, Tolkien is an engaging account of the earlier life of the scholar and author. 8/10

Where's the Catholic!?

[mbritton0902 · 7/10 · 23 January 2022]

Tolkien was an unashamedly highly devout Catholic. The movie completely misses all of this.

For example, the movie opens with the Tolkien family thrust into poverty. It skips the fact that this was because Tolkien's mother converters to Catholicism in a very anti-Catholic Britain and was ostracised by her family who would not support her at all. Many more such examples missed. Tolkien called his mother a "martyr for Catholicism" and that The Lord of the Rings was fundamentally "a Catholic story."

An Odd Way To Approach A Biopic

[zkonedog · 5/10 · 9 January 2020]

Generally, I'm a huge fan of biopics and tend to give them much leeway and high rankings. I don't quite know if I've ever seen one take the approach that "Tolkien" does, however, in that it mostly ignores the reason the audience is watching.

For a very basic overview, this film tells the story of young J.R.R. Tolkien (Nicholas Hoult), who of course would later pen "The Hobbit" and the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy. Here, however, he is seen as essentially an orphaned child (or at least one with very little parental involvement), and then as a student at King Edward's School, where his friendship (fellowship, if you will) with like-minded creatives and meeting Edith Bratt (Lily Collins) shape the path of his academic and personal life. Flash-forwards to Tolkien's time in WWI also intercut within the narrative.

The thing with biopics is that most of the time, an audience is watching because the subject did something special to be deemed worthy of such treatment. Recent biopics I've seen regarding Judy Garland ("Judy") and Elton John ("Rocketman") prove that point. Obviously, most watchers will come to this one via Tolkien's landmark LOTR or Hobbit books. As such, it would be expected that the overall narrative of this film would be to "get us to that point", or at very least have that factor heavily into the narrative.

But that is where "Tolkien" does not deliver. In an odd sort of way, there is very little connective tissue between the young Tolkien portrayed here and his ultimate authorial fate. This really could be the biopic of any anonymous creative personality.

The strange thing is, the story isn't all that bad! The visuals and emotions are compelling, the acting is very solid, and it is at least decently inspiring to see young Tolkien learn what it means to be a creative in a world often titled against that way of life.

Ultimately, though, "Tolkien" lacks that connection between what is transpiring on-screen and why we (as an audience) should care about it. Most viewers will likely want to see how his early life shaped his later iconic writings, but the filmmakers here just didn't want to take that approach. Instead, besides a few hints or Easter eggs here and there, they largely constrict this movie to strictly telling J.R.R. Tolkien's "origin story" and letting the rest speak for itself. For me, it didn't quite "speak" enough to warrant the two-hour investment, even with some solid acting/themes.