Amazing Grace / Jeremy C. Fox
The best thing I can say about Amazing Grace is that its trailer is entirely misleading: Although it’s indeed blandly earnest and often uninvolving, it is never earnest and uninvolving in quite the way that we expect. The film has almost nothing to do with the song from which it takes its title; we meet its composer, John Newton (Albert Finney), only twice, briefly, and are never subjected to a recreation of its composition, as the trailer implies. Instead, the film recounts — with reasonable if not scrupulous fidelity — the 20-year effort of William Wilberforce, a member of the House of Commons, to outlaw the slave trade in the British Empire. Director Michael Apted has constructed the film as a flashback, as Wilberforce (Ioan Gruffudd) shares his past with Barbara Spooner (Romola Garai), the woman he will marry.
Amazing Grace is like a historical flip-book, a facile skimming of events that makes them no more compelling than its tepid love story. Wilberforce is supposed to be a proud, headstrong man, a wit and a gadfly, both earnest and egotistical enough that he considers himself personally responsible for the reformation of English society. But for such a single-minded obsessive, Gruffudd’s Wilberforce certainly isn’t very dynamic, even in the earlier scenes, and it only gets worse as, over time, a bad case of colitis and an attendant addiction to laudanum make him stooped, sallow, and hollow-eyed, like the doomed Roderick Usher.
Wilberforce, we learn, was elected to Parliament while still in his early 20s but considered leaving government for a more contemplative life only a couple of years later, following his conversion to Anglicanism. Seeking to induce him to retain his office, Wilberforce’s good friend and future Prime Minister William Pitt (Benedict Cumberbatch) sets up an informal symposium on the slave trade. Like any group of committed liberals, the invited speakers are excitable, unruly, contentious, and often insufferably self-righteous. They include, among others, Oloudaqh Equiano (Senegalese musician Youssou N’Dour), a former slave who shares his personal horror story of being treated — and branded — as property, and the fervent abolitionist Thomas Clarkson (Rufus Sewell). Naturally bug-eyed, Sewell is perfectly cast as a half-mad idealist, but his crazed look undermines his character’s credibility, particularly later in the film when he begins advocating revolution and a form of socialism.
In contrast to Sewell’s eerie intensity, Gruffudd (Fantastic Four) is pure dead weight, quite possibly the least charismatic actor ever to be elevated to leading-man status, stolid and tiresome at his best, which he certainly isn’t here. Film actors don’t all have to be sexy and suave, but they do need to be compelling enough for us to want to watch them — which can often translate into sexiness, or at least some kind of appealing screen presence — and a compelling quality is that much more important if they’re on the plain side. There’s something so terminally gray and bland about Gruffudd and his ho-hum near-handsomeness that it could only be overcome by a real spitfire, which is just what he isn’t.
Having cast a dull lead, the filmmakers do their damnedest to ensure that he stays that way, giving Gruffudd little interesting to do. All of his actions in the film follow from his unseen religious conversion, which could have made for quite a dramatic moment, yet the movie glides right past it. And we don’t get to see his early, pre-conversion years as a rake, either, so there’s no contrast to make the character more complex. In the film’s opening scenes, when we learn that Wilberforce is in Bath for the restorative waters and that his cousin Henry Thornton and his wife Marianne (Nicholas Farrell and Sylvestra Le Touzel) are trying to set him up with a woman of their acquaintance, I briefly hoped for some Austen-style romantic intrigue, but we’re denied even that diversion.
What we do get are some excellent supporting performances from some of the top British and Irish character actors currently working, such as Toby Jones (Infamous, The Painted Veil) as the vile Duke of Clarence, Ciarán Hinds (The Nativity Story, “Rome”) as the pragmatically pro-slavery Lord Tarleton, and Michael Gambon (who’s in everything, it seems) as Wilberforce’s unexpected ally Lord Charles Fox. But even the best performances can be weakened by a script as lame as Steven Knight’s, in which all the characters speak in epigrams of wildly varying quality. Barbara, being only Wilberforce’s interlocutor and thus unable to do more than comment on the real action, is particularly given to them. A couple of my favorites are “It seems to me that if you have a bad taste in your mouth, you spit it out, not constantly swallow it back,” and “When people stop being afraid, they rediscover their compassion.” Wilberforce is a tool as well, though, so he marries her anyway.
Amazing Grace is a film of ideas and ideals, of the conflict between historical forces, but it’s also predictable and sleazily manipulative, as when it cheaply and insufficiently manufactures suspense before the climactic parliamentary vote or when Wilberforce’s magnificent singing voice fortuitously returns at his wedding as the assembled party sings, of course, “Amazing Grace.” It has a theme that’s intended to resonate with current world events: that of speaking unpopular ideas during time of war. But the people who’ll bother seeing this film don’t need to be gingerly tapped on the shoulder and asked to consider that idea in a new light.
The whole thing feels a bit smug and complacent, as if having a worthwhile subject were the only requirement for making a worthwhile film, and Apted directs in a respectable “Masterpiece Theatre” style that effectively drains away any inherent drama that hasn’t been squandered already by the bland cast. What we learn of slavery in the film is mostly hearsay with a few illustrative images; it’s all familiar and yet so much distanced both by time and its presentation that our outrage is rote, if we feel any at all. How, really, are we to be outraged when the film’s dramatic focus isn’t the suffering of the slaves but that of Wilberforce as he nobly, dully re-introduces the same bill in each session of Parliament for a couple of decades? A commendable effort, to be sure, but hardly the stuff of exciting cinema.
Jeremy C. Fox is a founding critic of Pajiba and a member of the Online Film Critics Society.You may email him at jeremycfox[at]gmail.com.
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Comments
sounds...boring....
Posted by: Some Guy at February 28, 2007 11:50 PM
Yes, it is.
I remember when the filmmakers were running the film around to groups for pre-screening. Seemed to become more boring each time it showed up (2 or 3 times, excluding the print now).
Oh well, I don't make the films, I just run them.
Posted by: Jim at March 1, 2007 12:15 AM
Who remembers the Mr. Show episode "A White Man Set Them Free."
This, like Blood Diamond, seems to shift focus away from the suffering of slaves and toward the ever-heroic white man.
Posted by: Bucko at March 1, 2007 12:57 AM
That being said, I'll just whack on the Hornblower series.
Posted by: Ellis Dee. at March 1, 2007 7:05 AM
Ditto, Ellis. I used to be such a Griffudd fangirl - I still need to buy King Arthur. (Hey, that frozen lake scene was really cool!) But FF2 just makes me cringe - even I'll still see.
Please, make more Hornblower. NOW.
Posted by: Sarah at March 1, 2007 7:11 AM
This movie about slavery cannot possible rival the tedium of "Amistad." How can movies about slavery be boring?
Posted by: Samantha T at March 1, 2007 10:55 AM
Oh, hell, does it look boring. But I think Romola Garai is a beautiful and charmismatic actress, so I might be foreced to sit through it just for her.
Posted by: Annie at March 1, 2007 10:59 AM
18th century c-span -- that has to be my favorite
Pajiba title.
Bucko -- I know it's an un-pc and unpopular thing to say, but white people helped abolish slavery as well. Whereas Blood Diamond took focus away from the real, important story, to tell this abysmal side story about a guy with a really bad accent and a woman. A lot like sticking an American in the middle of the Meiji revolution (GRRRR). However, the focus of this movie seems clearly in tune with historic events. That's where any defense of it I can give ends.
Period drama, historical dramas-- those are my weakness, and even so this movie sounds incredibly dull. The preview didn't make it appear interesting to me either. I thought at first that it was another one of those -relentlessly- feel-good-positive-hit-you-over-the-head life-affirming-in-the-most-obvious-way-Christian-message films. (I have nothing against the original Christian message, but these Hallmark type things make me cringe)
Posted by: Ari at March 1, 2007 12:30 PM
I'll be seeing this--can't help it, it's an interesting period (how boring can they make an interesting period? We shall see, I guess). I'm glad that, despite the way the trailer is packaged to attract "bible bucks," reviews I've seen so far seem to hold it's more about the day's politics than anything.
There's a fascinating debate going on today about this film on the C18 listserv--never mind how problematic/debunked the "great man theory" of history is (which, as one commentator put it, is what film biopics have to rely on, nevermind how oversimplified it is), I've discovered some interesting stuff about the real Wilberforce from scholars in the know. According to historian Peter Linebaugh:
"Wilberforce was a leader of both a political and a cultural counter-revolution. As the head of Society for the Suppression of Vice he opposed stage dancers, ballad singers, gingerbread fairs, nude swimming, and favored imprisonment for adultery.... He approved of the burning in effigy of Tom Paine, and to suppress democratic urges he proposed a national day of fasting and humiliation. He helped to draft the Sedition Act in 1795 making it treason to write or speak against the King or government. In 1799 William Pitt brought in a bill against the millwrights of London, the machine designers and makers, which Wilberforce promptly extended to all working people. This was the Combination Act which forbade the workers of England from combining to reduce the hours of toil or to increase the remuneration of labor. He wrote on the management of the poor suggesting that they console themselves for the inconveniences of poverty with the thought that life is 'very short'."
Priggish even by his own day's standards! That one man can promote abolition (which, as historians are noting in the wake of this film, was helped along immeasurably by the agitating of the enslaved peoples themselves), yet show true tory stripes by fearing "the people" so much...
Posted by: ranylt at March 1, 2007 1:31 PM
I know this will irritate so many people, but I am compelled to point out that Ciaran Hinds is Irish and therefore NOT a British actor. I don't ask for much out of Pajiba, just the once-a-day companionship of like-minded movie buffs at the level of intelligence that can appreciate accuracy (for instance, comments already posted on this thread on the historical context of the film). Please don't make me come up there with a geography lesson. Thanks.
A good point, PaddyDog, and the sentence has been corrected. In my own defense, I must say that I do realize that Hinds is Irish, but his name didn't appear in the first draft of that sentence, and when I added him, I didn't think to correct it. -- JCF
Posted by: PaddyDog at March 1, 2007 3:23 PM
Ooh, Jeremy! I'm your bitch forever for that quick and lovely apology. My love for this site could not get any bigger. Even Dustin is forgiven for the soccer-bashing a few weeks ago.
Posted by: PaddyDog at March 1, 2007 5:01 PM
Does sound more appropriate for Masterpiece Theather, no? Nevertheless, I would so much rather be sucked into watching this than, oh, Norbit, for instance. But maybe that's because I'm Ioan Gruffudd's bitch. Nothing near-handsome about him--he is!
Posted by: bonnie at March 2, 2007 12:07 AM
I'm with Ellis Dee and Sarah on the whole Hornblower thing. Don't know why he bothered to get out of the period clothes in the first place.
Posted by: Tina at March 2, 2007 12:41 AM
Wait - the guy from the Fantastic Four?
Mr. Fantastic, I believe?
Yup, that pretty much nails the lid on the coffin.
Posted by: TK at March 2, 2007 7:52 PM
I hate to bring politics into my viewing of films, but I won't be seeing this because Patricia Heaton is a producer of the film. I usually don't let the fact that extreme conservatives are involved in a project affect my viewing (Hell, I watch 24 and I even saw Apocalypto - although snuck in so I wouldn't have to give my money to Mel Gibson), but I despise Patricia Heaton and everything she stands for. The fact that she is involved leads me to believe there must be some kind of underlying extremely religious or conservative message in it that will piss me off, so I won't see it. If it were getting better reviews and looked more interesting, I might be torn over my decision, but your review confirms for me that this is one that will just have to be left unwatched in the Walmart DVD bargain bins.
Posted by: Tallsonofagun at March 3, 2007 1:13 PM
If you like Ioan Gruffud in period dramas, he was great in the recentish remake of The Forsyte Saga. But to be fair, he's not in it for very long.
Posted by: Grumblecakes at March 4, 2007 6:14 PM
movies about slavery shouldn't be that boring...Roots was pretty good remember?
Posted by: gina at March 5, 2007 12:20 AM
As soon as I saw "Group tickets available" on the previews I knew instantly it was a Christian film--or at least intended for Christians and large church viewings so good folk can go to a movie theater without feeling guilt.
I'm a Christian but I avoid these movies like the plague. Why must they always be so boring and insipid? I suffered through "One Night With the King"...I don't think I can take another mind-numbing piece of crap.
Posted by: Rebekah at March 5, 2007 2:34 PM
I watched the whole movie and some parts are boring and other parts are extremely boring. There was a few interesting parts of the movie, which ended briefly and went on to another boring talk with another gray headed britian.
Just imagine watching a Senate Floor full of british monkeys yelling at each other, a sick/crazy man who keeps saying slavery is cruel, and a blind monk that you only see 2 times briefly and that your movie. The reason I say a "crazy" man is because more then 1 time in the movie, I actually thought that the character was mentally ill because of random outburst.
Posted by: Ken at August 26, 2007 3:40 AM
