Runtime: 2 hours, 29 minutes
Rating: PG-13
Director: Steven Spielberg
Quick Impressions:
“So other than that, Mr. Lincoln, how did you like the play?”
That was my second favorite joke for a while when I was ten. (First by a mile was, “Famous last words of Eli Whitney: ‘Keep your cotton pickin’ hands off my gin!’”)
Then one day somebody pointed out to me that the joke usually goes, “So other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?” For about ten seconds, I thought, “Oh yes, that’s much funnier.” But then it hit me. “No. No, that’s just too sad.” So I retired the joke and moved on to, “Sir, the troops are revolting!” “Well, you’re pretty revolting yourself.”
(By now you’re probably getting the idea that you wouldn’t have wanted to get trapped in a conversation with me when I was ten.)
(Or now.)
Poor ol’ Mary Todd. As soon as I heard Sally Field had been cast, I thought, Well that makes sense. She’s so good at playing crazy people. And that’s really the only thing non-specialists know about Lincoln’s wife. She was crazy enough to be played by Sybil. (As the credits rolled, my dad said, “Well, Sally Field is bipolar in real life,” and I told him, “No, not in real life. She’s just bipolar on ER.” I can see how he would get confused, of course. ER was a terribly realistic show. (Why just the other day, a helicopter fell on me twice!))
(See, my sense of humor hasn’t really improved.)
Now, obviously, Sally Field doesn’t play exclusively mentally ill people, but she has played crazy to great critical acclaim twice (arguably three times, depending on if you believe that nun could fly in our shared reality). To me, Field seemed perfect for the role.
The only casting more perfect—Daniel Day-Lewis as Abraham Lincoln. I’ve said this before, but I’ve been thinking about it all year. You say, “Spielberg, Lincoln, Day-Lewis,” and I say, “Best Actor Oscar.” It’s like he’s had it in the bag since before they started filming.
But guess what? This movie really surprised me. Day-Lewis does not play Lincoln at all in the way I imagined he would. And as played by Sally Field, Mary Todd doesn’t even seem all that crazy (disturbed, yes, but Field really makes her seem relatable in a way I never expected).
The Good:
This film needs some kind of award for best casting. It’s amazing how many recognizable names and faces are squeezed in there, and none of them brings quite what you’d expect to his or her role. There’s a strange freshness, a new life injected into a story that we should all know but really don’t.
Everybody who is (and ever was or is likely to be) a cherished supporting actor in Hollywood shows up in this movie. Well, okay, not everybody. But mostly everybody. We get beloved veteran Hal Holbrook in fine form as excitable Republican party founder Preston Blair. (And Julie White, best known to me as Sam’s mom in the Transformers movies, as the daughter determined to protect him from himself.) Recognizing the lively sparkplug White was a pleasant surprise for me, and my mother was extremely surprised to see Holbrook because she thought he was dead. (She was thinking of Dixie Carter.)
Early in the movie, 2012 breakout Dane DeHaan and recently resurgent child actor Lukas Haas show up just to recite the Gettysburg Address. (Very tricky way to work that in since the movie focuses tightly on events occurring in the early months of 1865.) I loved Dane DeHan in Chronicle, liked him in Lawless, and wish he had more to do here—although as speaking parts go, it’s kind of hard to beat “The Gettysburg Address.”
James Spader (looking horrendous) is wonderfully oily as the political trickster W.N. Bilbo. And playing one of the men who works with Bilbo to secure votes for Lincoln’s proposed thirteenth amendment, Robert Latham, John Hawkes is very funny and so different from the character he plays in The Sessions that he ought to bolster his own Best Actor chances. The other guy who hangs around with them is the peripherally prolific Tim Blake Nelson who played the professor helping Banner find a cure in The Incredible Hulk. These three work very well together and collectively inject some humor into a desperate and frustrating situation.
Gloria Reuben (who has an extremely recognizable face because I only know her from ER which I haven’t watched in years and thought immediately, “Oh look! It’s Gloria Reuben!”) is very likable in a reasonably large part as a former slave who is now a member of Lincoln’s household staff.
Stephen Henderson also works in the Lincoln household. He doesn’t say much, but he has a nice moment near the end of the movie with Lincoln’s gloves.
Lee Pace (whom I know from TV, not movies) has a fantastic role as Fernando Wood, a representative vocally opposed to the thirteenth amendment. The part doesn’t call for a lot of range, but Pace brings considerable charisma and energy to the part of the feisty young charmer.
Jackie Earle Haley as Confederacy Vice President Alexander Stephens and Jed Harris as Ulysses S. Grant make the most of the brief moments that they have to bring the necessary gravitas to these historically significant figures.
David Oweloyo who really got my attention in Rise of the Planet of the Apes plays a small but extremely significant part at the very beginning of the movie. Oweloyo has tremendous poise and intensity. I look forward to his future film roles. I’m basically unfamiliar with the work of Colman Domingo, but I thought he was very good, too, the perfect counterpart to Oweloyo.
If I go on like this, I’ll just rehash the cast list, but the cast is great, and although a number of the supporting performers are very recognizable to audiences, they’re not necessarily known for portraying the types of characters they play in Lincoln, which is an ingenious way of keeping things fresh and familiar simultaneously.
Another tremendous strength is cinematography. Lincoln is a very stagey movie, and every scene is well dressed and shot exquisitely. There are lots of mirrors (and if there’s one thing I love, it’s using mirrors to enhance photography). I’m no cinematographer, but this film looks gorgeous, and it’s bound to get a nomination, possibly a win (though Life of Pi and The Master provide really stiff competition).
Another thing that I loved about this movie was its historical accuracy. How often does Hollywood give us an epic tightly focused on the passage of a piece of legislation? If I were a Lincoln buff, I would be in heaven! Now since American history is not my thing, I can’t personally swear that every detail of this movie is completely accurate, but based on what I do know, what I’ve heard from historians who do specialize in Lincoln, and what kinds of things happen in the movie, I’m pretty sure this movie is very well grounded historically (particularly for a major Hollywood release).
Personally, I love Tudor (and particularly Elizabethan) England. I watched Lincoln thinking, Why don’t they make big-budget movies about English history like this? (Don’t get me wrong. Cate Blanchett was fantastic in the Elizabeth movies, but the films themselves weren’t even attempting to be historically accurate. In fact, I remember reading that Blanchett wished they were more accurate, but Shekhar Kapur specifically wanted them not to be historically accurate as a deliberate choice. More often, Hollywood’s adjustments to history happen because of laziness or the strange idea that making things more
predictable and less exciting will somehow improve the story.)
As a kid, I read lots of collections of humorous anecdotes and letters, so I went into the movie quite familiar with Lincoln’s propensity for telling great stories. That aspect of Lincoln was new to my husband, though. My mother was also surprised to learn that “Lincoln was a politician.” (That’s what she said.) I know that Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Team of Rivals helped to inform Tony Kushner’s screenplay. Goodwin is certainly not without very vocal detractors and memorable career scandals, but what’s important here is that the movie is based on historical scholarship. They didn’t just think it would be fun to dress up sexy people in elaborate costumes and then put together a story on the fly.
Lincoln is intellectually engaging and rewardingly informative. Of course, a two-and-a-half hour movie is no replacement for legitimate, long-term, in depth historical study. But this movie certainly provides a nice jumping off point for those curious about Lincoln and his role in Civil Rights. It’s also not a bad movie for families, provided the children are old enough. (Our three-year-old mercifully slept through most of the movie, but our
nine-year-old watched it attentively. I’m not sure what he thought of it, but he watched the whole thing and laughed in some appropriate places.)
Most Oscar Worthy Moment (Daniel Day-Lewis):
When Daniel Day-Lewis wins Best Actor, he’ll become the only person in history to have won three Best Actor Oscars.
Much as I love to play devil’s advocate for the sake of an interesting Oscar race, I really can’t see how Day-Lewis doesn’t have this in the bag. He plays Lincoln entirely differently than I imagined he would, and I think it works brilliantly. You imagine him towering around in his stovetop hat, booming out proclamations in a powerful, endearing voice. Instead, he sneaks around in a quiet, unassuming sort of way and then pops out and surprises everyone when they’re least expecting it. Even though I know there’s a sizable and vocal contingent of fans who think Day-Lewis is the greatest living actor, normally he’s too big and loud for me (especially recently). I always watch his performances and think with a sigh, “Well, I should be more impressed, I’m sure, but this seems kind of hammy and overdone to me.”
The genius of his portrayal of Lincoln is in the small things, the subtlety, the quiet moments. To be honest, I kind of hoped not to be impressed (because wanting Day-Lewis to win an Oscar for playing Lincoln just seems too obvious), but this particular performance won me over.
I was most impressed when Day-Lewis’s Lincoln emerged from beneath a blanket in one scene, seeming to appear from nowhere. (I also loved one person’s reaction to his incipient anecdote.) When played by Day-Lewis, Lincoln is controlled charisma, quiet power, (practically unassuming majesty). He just kind of lurks in the background being very small and quiet and controlled, and then suddenly, BAM! He’s Abraham Lincoln! (And he’s known it the entire time, but you just figured it out, so you’re still a little bit off balance, and he wins.) (I can imagine my stepson saying, “Aww! You just got told! You just got told by Abraham Lincoln!”) (We’re always getting told we “got told” by my stepson, at moments that seem strangely selected to us, but that’s fourth graders for you.)
Most Oscar Worthy Moment (Sally Field):
On paper, Sally Field seems a bit old to play Mary Todd Lincoln at the end of the Civil War, but on the screen, you really don’t notice this.
She has a very showy scene with Daniel Day-Lewis reasonably late in the movie when they discuss their sons and her crazy desire not to be locked up in a madhouse, and she’s good there, but I prefer her in the party scene when she’s interacting with Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones). For one thing, the scene is extremely amusing (or was to me. I’ve got to remember the line, “Oh, but I’m detaining you.” Or was it, “I’ve detained you”?) The way she delivered that line was so brilliant. In this charming scene, Field skillfully shows us that Mary Todd is both savvy politically and just on the verge of being totally out of control emotionally. Her political acumen and barbed wit are both sharper than her skills as a hostess. In this scene, Mary Todd comes across as an incredibly interesting and nuanced character, so controlled and so out of control simultaneously. (And of course, at moments, being known as a crazy woman is terribly convenient.)
I don’t think Sally Field will win the Oscar, but I wouldn’t rule her out either.
Most Oscar Worthy Moment (Tommy Lee Jones):
I’ve heard lots of Oscar Buzz for Tommy Lee Jones, and now I know why. He’s the most forward-thinking person in the movie and comes across as years ahead of his time. Thaddeus Stevens is a very sympathetic character who really and truly believes in race equality and has devoted his life to the cause. He’s also a witty curmudgeon, the type of character Jones can always pull off with great panache. What’s better, he’s an eloquent witty curmudgeon, so Jones gets some of the most delightful lines in the movie (which is amazing since this is Lincoln, and he’s not playing Lincoln).
His best moment comes when Stevens must explain (in front of reporters with pens at the ready) just what exactly he believes about race equality. Does he take the statement that “all men are created equal” literally? This may have been my favorite scene in the entire movie.
Watching early on, I thought apprehensively, “Oh man, if I were Gloria Reuben, I would have to get up and leave.” (Trust me. I’m very emotional and not all that confrontational, so I have to get up and leave a lot.) The way Stevens salvages this difficult situation and turns it into an applause moment for him is magnificent, and Jones really sells it.
This movie seems destined to square off with Argo come Oscar time. One has eloquent curmudgeon-hero, beloved actor, Tommy Lee Jones, the other irreverent philanthropist-hero, beloved actor Alan Arkin. Arkin’s over a decade older than Jones, but he’s also won more recently, and he’s playing a fictionalized composite character. (It’s quite likely that none of this actually matters, but I like to pretend that it does.) (Really Dwight Henry should probably win, but I doubt he will.)
Most Oscar Worthy Moment (Tony Kushner):
In some ways, getting lauded playwright best known for his Pulitzer prize winning play Angels in America Tony Kushner to write a script about Abraham Lincoln’s push for the thirteenth amendment seems like an obvious choice, in other ways, an odd one. Kushner’s name definitely gets your attention, particularly if you read The Crucible in high school and wonder if some day your children will be discussing Kushner’s screenplay for Lincoln
in an American history classroom…unless, of course, you neither know nor care who Tony Kushner is, like my parents who watched the movie with us and liked it just as much as we did. Kushner’s Lincoln screenplay works so well because it bogs itself down in the historicity of one event in Lincoln’s political life and doesn’t go flying off into the aether.
Instead of proceeding from a “wasn’t Abraham Lincoln great?” premise, the screenplay instead shows us—specifically, concretely—something most consider great that Abraham Lincoln (along with many others) did.
From what I can glean with cursory, unreliable internet research, Kushner’s entire screenplay is based on events that occur in a handful of pages of the Doris Kearns Goodwin book. (I’m not sure that “a handful of pages” is a good expression, on second thought, unless Kushner ripped the section about the amendment out of a library book, so he could write his screenplay at home.) Still because the screenplay was informed by a book, I’m sure that makes it an adapted screenplay, and I expect it to be nominated.
The screenplay does all kinds of clever things (like sneaking in “The Gettysburg Address” in a movie set in 1865), but one thing that I loved was the inclusion of stories Lincoln actually told and what sound very like quotations members of the House actually said.
After the movie, my husband and I realized that we had the same favorite moment—when Lincoln talks to Stevens about the perils and complications of following one’s moral compass. This was the best idea in the movie for me, the importance of compromise as a component of strategy, the notion that winning ideological warfare requires just as much strategy as succeeding on the battlefield. A good man can bring about great evil if he’s not careful. I love the way the screenplay showcases this idea, showing Lincoln as a human politician rather than a martyred saint (though he’s still kind of larger than life). The screenplay also emphasizes that not all of us can be Abraham Lincoln. Several characters point out the difference between Lincoln and ordinary people, and Mary Todd spells it all out directly for us in case we’ve missed it somehow. It’s pretty rare for a man to find out he’s Abraham Lincoln these days, but situations like the one Stevens faces come up all the time for everybody. It’s hard enough just knowing what’s right, so it’s easy to be self-congratulatory and dogmatic when we figure it out. But being right is not enough. We must also be careful, prudent. Knowing what is right and doing what is right are often enterprises requiring two distinct skill sets.
Most Oscar Worthy Moment (Steven Spielberg):
This movie is so much better than War Horse (though it’s much less entertaining for children). Don’t get me wrong. War Horse is a very solid, well-made film, but it feels archaic or something, like a majestic pageant from another era. Lincoln feels so new and fresh, which is weird because it’s an epic history film about a man whom most Americans immediately name as our greatest president. In War Horse, the protagonist is a horse! Whose story do we know more about already—Abraham Lincoln or some random horse? And yet Lincoln is the film that feels new and invigorating.
Rather than single out any one scene, I’d say that Spielberg’s greatest achievement as a director is to coax so many wonderful performances from such a large and seasoned cast. We’re familiar with almost all of the actors, but their approaches to their characters seem almost universally fresh and unexpected.
The Other Performances:
I love David Strathairn, and he’s great as Seward, a man who holds his own in charged conversations with Abraham Lincoln, but I don’t think there’s room in Supporting Actor for him. Likewise, Joseph Gordon-Levitt won’t be Oscar nominated for his perfectly respectable performance as Lincoln’s son Robert, but he will be nominated someday soon, and this film will be part of his stunningly solid body of work.
Gulliver McGrath is very engaging as Lincoln’s youngest son. He’s much stronger here than he was in Dark Shadows this summer.
Best Scenes:
Two scenes I’ve already mentioned—both of them involving Stevens—stand out to me. 1) The wonderful compass talk, and 2) The way Stevens manages to make his point without losing his advantage.
Funniest Scene/Best Joke:
Setting aside my mother’s confusion that Tom Hanks wasn’t playing Lincoln as she’d expected, the funniest part is almost certainly Lincoln’s anecdote about George Washington in the water closet. Even my stepson laughed at that.
I also found Sally Field’s Mary Todd Lincoln extremely amusing, sometimes almost too funny.
The Negatives:
The last big scene with Mary Todd Lincoln in the carriage was a little much. I can’t complain too much because I actually enjoyed watching it, but it felt like Mrs. Lincoln (the character, not the actress) was breaking the fourth wall and talking directly to the audience. (And Sally Field is in on the joke.) It was sort of weird, the kind of moment you usually get in old TV show episodes (or student videos for history class) about time travel. I really think this scene felt off tonally from the rest, so I feel compelled to mention it. I’m conflicted, though, because, honestly I liked it.
Also, the movie is two-and-a-half hours long, and it’s almost entirely about the legislative process of passing a Constitutional amendment. So if you don’t like movies about the minutiae of the political process, you are likely to fall asleep and wake up at the end of the movie (like my daughter did). If you’re not into it, the movie can be very boring. Even if you are into it, let’s face it, it’s still boring. Even I thought it was boring in places. I just didn’t mind because I like boring things. (I know that sounds crazy, but sometimes, watching the movie feels like reading a history book. If you like reading history books—as I do—then this will really be your cup of tea. If you don’t, though…)
The last scene in the theater is a very unusual choice also. I won’t say bad, but not what anyone is expecting. And for some reason, the part with the gloves sort of annoyed me. It seemed too contrived and too self-conscious.
Almost always my complaint with Daniel Day-Lewis movies is that they pointedly showcase his acting a little too much, setting him up to go on and on acting up a storm, and sometimes that feels like the case here, too (though there’s no denying that his performance is excellent, and if anybody has a right to drone on and on, it’s Abraham Lincoln).
One last thought, not really a true negative: I really thought this movie made Abraham Lincoln look almost like a king. I kept thinking, Maybe the reason he was such a great president was that he was actually more like a king. I mean, he walked around the battlefield in a low-key way like Henry V and heard petitions from soldiers. He deliberately side-stepped law and used executive power to accomplish not what was legal necessarily but what was right (according to Euclid and God). He kept saying over and over again that he acted in the best interests of the people and to protect the people and with the good will of the people. Change the article to a possessive pronoun, and you’ve got Queen Elizabeth I in a stovepipe hat! His great show of humility combined with his keen awareness of his own power and vague sense of destiny made him seem far more kingly than presidentish from where I sat.
Overall:
Lots of people clapped at the end of the movie (including my daughter, but she had just woken up and enjoys clapping when others do). I really enjoyed watching Lincoln, as did my parents and my husband.
Even my stepson kept saying over and over again at dinner afterwards, “The Civil War was so terrible because brother fought against brother. Like they really did. Your actual brother. You might really kill your real brother. And what if it was twins, and one fought for the North and one for the South? OH! And what if there were triplets?!” He explored all the mathematical possibilities of triplets taking sides for some time. So even though parts of the movie bored him, he was certainly interested by the subject.
The movie is slow (by design) and hardly what you’d call exciting in the usual cinematic sense, but it’s thoughtfully written, beautifully filmed, expertly directed, magnificently acted, and intellectually engaging. It’s definitely one of the best movies I’ve seen this year (though I’m not in a hurry to watch it again).