Two Emotional Films

Saturday we watched two fairly emotional films.  Bobbins saw Les Mis with the girls while I saw Lincoln with Mr. M and Diablo.  I'll let Bobbins comment on that movie, but you know I have to weigh in on a film on a topic which I much studied and on my favorite President.  The short verdict is that it's good but not movie-theater good, i.e. wait till it's on Netflix or other platforms.  It's obviously a very dialogue-driven movie, so you don't need the big screen or sound.  But it's a little too long and there's a couple troublesome spots.  First, the script elevates Mary Todd Lincoln into someone/something she wasn't.  They've kept her weirdness and grieving nature but also made her more of a player in the action than she really was.  Lincoln was certainly a folksy guy but I don't think -this- folksy.  The film is almost exclusively about January 1865 but the last 20 minutes goes to April and Lincoln's assassination.  It's a sappy coda to the real story, the passage of the 13th Amendment.  This isn't a biopic of Abraham Lincoln but the story of the amendment to end slavery in the United States.  The film's crescendo is the amendment's passage, and this should've been its end too.  Instead we get a long play to emotion for the drawn-out finish.

But the good points: Daniel Day-Lewis is phenomenal as the President.  He's an unbelievable actor so you expect it, but it's still a revelation.  From the first moment he appears on screen you feel like you're really looking at the 19thC man.  Tommy Lee Jones embodies radical Republican Thaddeus Stevens.  Spielberg infuses heady drama into parliamentary maneuvers toward the amendment's passage in the House of Republicans (which wasn't -that- dramatic) and there are some wonderful exchanges.

The second film, which Bobbins and I watched together, was Ocotober Baby, a powerful pro-life story that really challenges some of the conventions of today's abortion debate.  It's a very touching film.  The first half doesn't quite establish its footing, as the dialogue is jumpy, the scenes don't mesh, and the narrative falters, not flows.  The second half, however, packs quite a wallop.  Of course we already agreed with the film's message, but this story is so remarkable I don't see how even the most ardent pro-choicers couldn't be moved.