I was first introduced to Siegfried Sassoon and his poetry through a film called Regeneration (though it was retitled Behind the Lines in the U.S.) It depicts a hospital for English soldiers dealing with shellshock during WWI, and Sassoon is a major character, along with fellow war poet Wilfred Owen. This film offers another look at that chapter of Sassoon’s life, but it’s only part of a larger portrait.
We explore the life of Siegfried Sassoon. Mostly, the film follows him as a young man—experiencing the horrors of WWI, spending time in a mental hospital, growing in both artistry and renown as a poet, pursuing several romances over a number of years. An ambitious picture of a complicated man, we see Siegfried’s agitations, his triumphs, and his heartbreak.
In recent years, I feel like I’ve seen more biopics that go all in on portraying one particular significant event from a historical figure’s life, so much so that I’ve gotten a little out of practice at watching a story that examines a much larger cross-section. Benediction at times feels a bit directionless as it just covers so much: the war, the hospital, poetry, high society, sex, romance, fame, and so on. Siegfried’s quietly eloquent sessions in the hospital with Dr. Rivers can feel like they’re taking place in a different film than the scenes of him sniping with a lover who’s growing tired of him. Obviously, Siegfried Sassoon was all of the things he’s depicted as in the film, but the film doesn’t always make the various parts of him feel like a cohesive whole, which can hurt its throughline.
However, there is a lot about the film that I find really lovely. I like how Siegfried’s poetry (along with a bit of Wilfred Owen’s) is woven into the movie, and especially in the early passages, Siegfried’s remarks and observations are so insightful that it makes me wonder how much of his dialogue is directly lifted from his writings. I especially love him condemning the British government for “prolonging the war by failing to state their conditions for peace.” Another marvelous line is, “Bravery is only cowardice in extremis.”
In depicting his love life, I appreciate that the film doesn’t spend much time dwelling on homophobia or hiding relationships from the world—most of Siegfried’s relationship issues stem from his boyfriends’ faults colliding with his, not the mere fact of being gay in the first half of the 20th century. When heteronormativity does rear its end, the call is coming more from inside the house than without, as members of Siegfried’s circle succumb to prescriptive marriages to women because that’s just the sort of thing people do.
I’m not super familiar with Jack Lowden, who plays Siegfried, though IMDb tells me I’ve seen him in a few other projects, all different period pieces (he must have a face for a different era, I guess.) Even though the film itself doesn’t always feel consistent, his performance grounds it as much as possible. His Siegfried has a sort of numbness to him, feeling remote and a little snobbish, yet you can still feel his warmth. His emotions run deep, even if he can’t always express them. Another newer face for me is Matthew Tennyson, who’s sweetly sad as Wilfred Owen. The film also features Simon Russell Beale, Jeremy Irvine, and Tom Blyth. Gemma Jones and Anton Lesser play older versions of two important characters in the film, which is also where Peter Capaldi comes in.
Capaldi plays the older Siegfried, at a point in his life when what little happiness he once had seems to have been wrung away. Even though the younger Siegfried can be numb and somewhat repressed, the older version feels outright cold in comparison. You can feel the resentment of old grudges radiating off of him—some of what happens during his younger years help to explain what becomes of him, but it’s still sad to see.
I’m not quite sure about this performance. Obviously, Capaldi is no stranger to playing angry characters, but the Twelfth Doctor has a lot more “twinkle” than might appear at first, and even Malcolm Tucker has a sort of buoyancy when things are going his way. The older Siegfried, in contrast, feels almost dried up, with little life left in him. What’s more, he doesn’t fundamentally feel like the younger version. That’s the most crucial part of any story that involves two different actors playing the same character at different ages, and I don’t know that I can say Capaldi sticks the landing here.
Accent Watch
A very repressed, clipped-sounding RP.
Recommend?
In General – Maybe. It’s a film about an interesting man, and it has scenes of genuine melancholy beauty. (As is often the case with biopics, I don’t know enough to tell you whether or not the story is told with much accuracy.)
Peter Capaldi – I don’t know. While this performance can be affecting, it’s not a favorite of mine. Don’t write it off, but I wouldn’t necessarily prioritize it.
Warnings
Violence, sexual content, drinking/smoking, language, and strong thematic elements.
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