Review: Tolkien (2019)

I’m a keen admirer of J. R. R. Tolkien’s literary works. I read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings almost yearly as a boy, including the Appendices. I’ve read The Silmarillion more than once, I’ve gone through most of Tolkien’s literary essays, and I’ve kept up with most of his posthumous tales of the First Age. However, I’ve actually never read one of the books about his life, such as Humphrey Carpenter’s 1977 biography or John Garth’s Tolkien and the Great War (2002). So I was interested in how Dome Karukoski’s biopic, Tolkien, fleshes out certain aspects of Tolkien’s life that I knew only fragmentarily, such as his being an orphan or his youthful courtship of Edith Bratt (played by Lily Collins), who would eventually become Tolkien’s wife. The success of Tolkien may be limited but it’s worth appreciating how the film brings attention to important aspects of J.R.R. Tolkien’s life that might not be widely known, even among many fans of The Lord of the Rings books and films. 

Karukoski and screenwriters David Gleeson and Stephen Beresford harness the biography of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (known to his most as “Ronald” and played here by Nicholas Hoult) to some popular subgenres, which is probably effective for a general audience but might rile some Tolkien purists. The story plays out as a teen romance melodrama about two star-crossed lovers within the dramatic settings of a boarding school and then Oxford. Hoult’s and Collins’ performances are lively but perhaps a bit unformed at times; we get too many indefinite frowns from Hoult and too many vague sad looks from Collins. 

The film also functions as one of those genius movies, in which we simply marvel at someone using their amazing powers of the mind. Rain Man (1988) and A Beautiful Mind (2001) are two pioneers of the subgenre, but Robert Downey Jr. and Benedict Cumberbatch cemented this trope in recent years, each with two memorable performances: Downey as Tony Stark and Sherlock Holmes, and Cumberbatch as Holmes as well as Alan Turing. In Tolkien, we delight in Ronald’s abilities to invent language, which eventually impresses an Oxford philologist (played by the great Derek Jacobi) enough to grant Ronald a scholarship. 

The frame narrative for the whole picture is set during the Battle of the Somme in World War I. While some might not know that Tolkien saw active service during the war, the filmmakers interpret his wartime experiences as the forging event of Tolkien-the-writer, ultimately bringing together the different elements that determine the man who would create Middle Earth. It’s an interesting device, but the wartime imagery is weirdly fashioned to anticipate the visualization of Tolkien’s writings in the eventual Peter Jackson movies.

Gleeson and Beresford’s screenplay emphasizes Ronald’s outsider status throughout the film. Tolkien was born in South Africa, where his father died. The family moves back to England, and his mother, Mabel (Laura Donnelly), encourages Ronald’s interests in fairy stories and ancient languages. But she is sick and soon passes too. Father Francis Morgan (Colm Meaney) becomes Ronald’s legal guardian, and Ronald becomes the ward of a rich old lady, Mrs. Faulkner (Pam Ferris), who also has another ward under her care, Edith Bratt. When Ronald and Edith spark up a romance, Father Francis forbids Ronald from pursuing Edith until he turns 21, so that the poor orphan can focus on his studies and build his future. Like most boarding school dramas, Ronald makes friends with a group of other outsider boys, who become the “Fellowship.” 

This is one example of how Tolkein suffers from what we might call the “Shakespeare in Love fallacy,” in which artists must live out the experiences that they depict in their art. Such narrative approaches adore the artistic temperament yet also strangely diminish the power of the imagination to represent things beyond the confines of one’s experience. If Tolkien is famous for anything, it’s above all for creating a separate, sustained, and detailed world in his books, a “secondary creation,” as Tolkien would describe it. The film’s strength, however, is that it underscores how some important and lesser known aspects of Tolkien’s life must have had a bearing on his literary depictions, such as how his difficult courtship of Edith must have influenced his depictions of Beren and Lúthien and Arwen and Aragorn, how his boyhood friendships influenced the value he places on friendship and fellowship in his writings, and how his passion and particular skill for languages shapes his way in life.

While Tolkien emphasizes Ronald’s artistic and aesthetic peculiarities, more could have been made about how being a Roman Catholic in early 20th-century England was a barrier to one entering the mainstream of English life. I wouldn’t say the film has removed Tolkien’s religion altogether, as some have complained, but it certainly deemphasizes that dimension in favour of Tolkien’s love of literature and language. Such is mainstream 21st-century Hollywood filmmaking, though, which regularly ignores the vital and continued presence of spirituality—and religion—in many lives to this day. On the other hand, the decision to not place Tolkien’s religion at the centre of the film might rankle some but it’s not a deal-breaker for the film, given how Tolkien’s devotion to Catholicism comes out in his writings more implicitly rather than directly. It’s also unclear to me whether a second viewing would reveal more engagement, however implicit, with Tolkien’s faith throughout the film.

The film’s approach to religion is nevertheless an example of how Tolkien simultaneously makes the story of his life lively and accessible while also distorting and flattening aspects. Alas, this is the quandary of most biopics. As a Tolkein fan, I found it surprisingly appealing, even if it’s far from being the Tolkien biographical film I would like to see. 

6 out of 10

Tolkien (2019, USA)

Directed by Dome Karukoski; written by David Gleeson and Stephen Beresford; starring Nicholas Hoult, Lily Collins, Colm Meaney, Laura Donnelly, Pam Ferris, and Derek Jacobi.

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