Benediction

Our advice: Watch this film [at least] twice. Then, and only then, will you get the full emotional thrust that Terence Davies relentlessly and stylistically delivers.

When a bright young thing reaches the depth of their despair. A life led with so many anomalies can only be a life lived with regret. Peter Capaldi's elderly Sassoon spits venom...fuelled with a churlish frustration of being unappreciated, barely recognised...the last throes of narcissism! 

By stark contrast, Jack Lowden, as the young Sassoon, delights in the delights of privilege and connection. His war experience affords him a fragility that cracks but never shatters. He is an eloquent Lothario-in-training.

The affection that Terence Davies shows for the young Sassoon is spotlighted against his obvious and unbridled contempt for Ivor Novello...a conceited heart-breaker, so-much-so, it's difficult to see why Novello was even tolerated in this society. Still, money and fame always trump and thump the required family trees of aristocracy.

The conflicts are vast and complex, as is the timeline...but, with this honed director's experience, there's nothing ramshackle or random. This is a blessing...for the fallen, for the bright things...for love.

Siegfried Sassoon's despair came not from being under-appreciated, nor for being unflappably unforgiving...but, from remembering and being constantly reminded of his one true lost love.

“W’s death was an unhealed wound, & the ache of it has been with me ever since. I wanted him back—not his poems.”

An emotional wallop.

Trailer...