A Reel Review: TOLKIEN

JRR Tolkien is regarded as one of the greatest writers of all time and the father of modern fantasy. His epics works of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were a dense and rich modern mythology, packed with heroes, elves, dwarves, wizards, dragons, goblins…and little people with big hairy feet. The books made use of their own languages and even further back-history, and the impressive amount of material is staggering. How did Tolkien come to create such a vast world? The answers try to come in the first biopic about his life, TOLKIEN. 

JRR Tolkien (Nicholas Hoult), has his imagination sparked through his love of language and mythology, his school days, friendships, and time on the battlefields of World War I. 

It’s no easy task making a biopic on a writer. It’s not like a film about a musician where there are entertaining performances to put into the film every 10 or 15 minutes. Audiences aren’t going to last long watching a character at his typewriter, so TOLKIEN avoids the matter altogether by focusing on the formative years of JRR Tolkien’s life. The film is about the many steps he takes to find inspiration for his eventual famous works, with the actual creation of those books coming much later on. TOLKIEN guides us through his days as an orphan, his schooling, and eventual strong friendships with three lads (played by Anthony Boyle, Tom Glynn-Carney, and Patrick Gibson), and his romance with his future wife Edith (Lily Collins)…all leading up to his time in the trenches of WWI. 

The pieces and parts of The Hobbit  and The Lord of the Rings are picked up here and there, as Tolkien sees “visions” of his future works. On the hellish battlefields he sees dragons and cloaked riders, and in the flame of a candle…a golden ring. From his friends he finds the art of poetry and the value of (ahem), fellowship…and in Edith he finds the difficulty of love. For the most part it works, but often it feels too convenient for him to be seeing all these images everywhere he goes. The images he sees look great and are right out of Tolkien lore…but they can easily be mistaken for divine intervention as opposed to a creative mind at work. 

Director Dome Karukoski films a great looking movie, and the battle scenes have a horrific glory to them. Pacing is an issue, as many scenes drag on way too long. Character development is fine as Tolkien’s past works to his advantage and disadvantage throughout the movie, although his romance with Edith feels like a happy circumstance and not something that develops naturally. 

Nicholas Hoult carries the film and goes through a lot, especially on the battle-fields, and his chemistry with Lilly Collins works well enough. Colm Meaney and Derek Jacobi are great as always. The highlights of the film belong to the scenes Tolkien spends with his three friends, discussing and debating poetry and literature; ground-zero for modern fandom and social media postings. 

There is very little time spent on the actual creative process of Tolkien’s two most famous works, and the film actually ends with him writing the opening line of The Hobbit. It feels like a cheat, as the movie wraps just as it’s becoming interesting. The message seems to be that it takes a lifetime to realize one’s journey, but the film doesn’t drive it home enough. On its own, TOLKIEN works, but it feels like it could have been so much more. 

BOTTOM LINE: Rent it