Good but contrived

Rating: 5/10 (24 March 2020)

1917 is a hard film for me to critique, because I love history so much and finding decent WW1 films is extremely hard to come by, and it is a well-made (for the most part), good-intentioned film.
For the good, I thought the cinematography was outstanding (except one gimmick), the parts were well acted, and the film exuded polish. The light effects in the ruined city alone were amazing.
For the bad, all the camera work was heavily lauded for its unusual style, but I found it extremely unnecessary and limiting. Every scene is a very long one-shot? Neat. But "why"? I felt like the only place it made sense was the opening, to show the size / scope of the trench warfare, and the ending, to display the "over the top" battle scene. Other than that it didn't really lend itself to helping tell the story at all.
Also, for being a Best Picture nominee, there were a ton of contrived / forced scenes that seemed almost silly. Soldier finds (shockingly) unspoiled milk on an abandoned farm, then, wouldn't ya know it?! He finds a mom and baby hours later! What a "coincidence".
It's like those point-and-click computer games of old where you find a random item that you eventually use to solve some later quest, like Myst or Space Quest.
Well, this isn't a cheesy 1980's video game, so that's a problem.
Also, I felt like the death of the main character's comrade in arms was a big misstep, not so much because I cared about the character, it was because from then on, the trip becomes a big, silent slog, other than the aforementioned miracle milk incident.
Beyond that, having the main character "just miss" the start of the battle in the end was just an excuse for a gratuitous WW1 battle scene, it served no real purpose otherwise.
Bottom line, good film, basically, probably just a little too forced for me to ever watch it again.