Benediction

Following the horrors of the Great War, Europe experienced a brief renaissance, spearheaded by a diverse array of artists, musicians, and writers who belonged to a thriving queer subculture.  The Weimar Republic stands as perhaps the most inspiring, and tragic, example of how social progress often regresses before meaningful change can take root.  Home to such innovations as the Bauhaus movement, queer cinema (from directors like Richard Oswald), and even trailblazing scientific research on the subject of gender and sexuality, the city of Berlin was a jewel of creative advancement before creeping fascism stamped it out. 

British aristocrat and poet, Siegfried Sassoon, was among those who helped shape this artistic boom in the precious few decades between the great wars.  Terence Davies’ BENEDICTION flows as a melancholy exploration between Sassoon’s post-war youth (Jack Lowden), and embittered, lonely twilight years (Peter Capaldi).  Utilizing historic battlefield footage accompanied by recitation of Sassoon’s most personal and political works (War Poems, Aftermath, Vigils), his PTSD flashbacks of battlefield carnage jarringly punctuate the narrative.

A commanding officer with a reputation for his near-suicidal courage, Sassoon earned the nickname “Mad Jack.”  He received the military cross in 1916 for collecting wounded under open enemy fire.  After a brief leave (for trench fever), he refused to return to active duty, penning an incendiary letter to his commanding officer.  The pacifist declaration leaked to the press.  Many saw this as an act of treason and rejection of military authority.  Rather than consign Sassoon to the firing squad, a powerful acquaintance argued that he was mentally unwell.  Despite his furious protestations, Sassoon prepared himself for execution rather than to lead one more man into a war he considered to be immoral political theater.  Committed to the Craiglockhart War Hospital, he was treated for “shell shock”. 

This period of respite was critical to Sassoon’s development as a writer, and his identity as a gay man.  He developed emotionally intimate relationships with two others who shared his proclivity toward “love that dare not speak its name”: his psychiatrist (Ben Daniels), and poet Wilfred Owen (Matthew Tennyson).  From this inflection point (and Owen’s subsequent tragic death), BENEDICTION follows Sassoon as he falls for Ivor Novello (Jeremy Irvine), only to be forgotten by the insufferable actor just as quickly.  Sassoon meanders through high society, searching for both identity and meaning, constraining himself to his own class and limiting his artistic horizons.  

His reticence to explore the vibrant bohemian element of that era makes it difficult to fully empathize with his string of unlucky romantic exploits, which ultimately end in a messy estrangement from fellow aristocrat Stephen Tennant (Calam Lynch).  Though he rubbed shoulders with giants like Oscar Wilde, EM Forster, and TE Lawrence, he ended his life a near-hermit, closed off from a culture he could no longer connect with. 

The narrative of a man defeated by the tragedy of living someone’s life is a familiar one; Davies’ attempt to mix poetic musings of Sassoon, Owen, and others of the period—e.g. A.E. Houseman—with the post-war tragedy of his personal life is admirable, yet self-defeating.  Scenes jumble together different time periods, trying to cram perhaps too much history into one scattershot biography.  Both Lowden and Capaldi do the best they can with a screenplay reminiscent of Merchant Ivory films, including a tendency towards bloated introspection.  Even biting repartee can get tiresome if it’s untempered by an efficient edit.