I rarely declare a new film a future classic, but...

Rating: 8/10 (4 February 2020)

I sometimes fear we're running out of stuff to do with the War Movie; this is a genre particularly prone to redundancy and cliché. But with 1917, Sam Mendes aspires to do for World War I what Spielberg did for II, creating a sort of complete immersion that never lets us disconnect from the ever-threatening wartime setting. This is largely due to the presentation; the entire movie looks like one long, uninterrupted shot!
Of course, the film isn't truly done in one take, instead creating the illusion of it with editing and effects like those of Birdman. There have been genuine attempts at a one-shot movie (like Utøya, Russian Ark, and Victoria), but they came with the hiccups that will inevitably arise when one tries to do live theater plus shifting locations plus special effects plus a purposely limited camera crew. And of course, many of Andy Warhol's "films" were technically done in one take. It needn't always be an impressive thing to do.
1917, however, is quite impressively made, even when you can deduce where it hides its cuts and gives the cast and crew a well-deserved break. As mentioned, we still feel wholly trapped in the setting, which is both due to the lack of cuts and the fact that we view the world-shaking horrors exclusively from the point-of-view of two British soldiers (George MacKay and Dean-Charles Chapman), sent on a suicide mission to deliver one simple message.
Problems arise when we reach the film's slower moments, which aren't made that much more admirable on a technical level just because the actors converse in an uninterrupted session (even during the purely "talky" and small-scale bits, Birdman had more directing going on in its lengthy takes). Granted, these moments are some of the film's most human, supplying a somber breather in-between busy trenches, suspenseful action, and horrific, squalid battle sites.
The most popular complaint seems to be of Thomas Newman's music, which can be overbearing and, rather than enhancing the emotions, damage scenes that would've been more powerful, immersive, and intense without it; I only partly agree. Another complaint is mainly popular on Film Twitter (my favorite place), where people sincerely question why we still make movies about the World Wars - which, in spite of what I said about irritating war film clichés, isn't exactly the sort of tacit celebration of historical ignorance I wish to humor.
A few of the inevitable cuts are pretty obvious too (one is willfully obvious, creating an intermission point in the very middle), even attempting to merge two shots with slight but noticeable differences in lighting. But there is still so much to admire in terms of special effects, coordination, camera movement, production design, and indeed, the effective use of lighting (especially in a scene where threatening ruins are lit exclusively by a flare) that it doesn't matter much. Much of the time, the execution lives up to Mendes' ambition.
Our leads also carry the film nicely; they work as focal characters on top of sharing genuine history and chemistry, as we also admire their devotion. Perhaps celebrity cameos like those of Colin Firth and Benedict Cumberbatch will distract from the realism and immersion, but this will hardly be true of every viewer. I conclude that this is a pretty damn good film overall and that it should at the very least win some techies this Sunday. I won't go for my highest rating (my #KeepingUpWithTheOscars fave remains Little Women and Parasite remains by Best Picture vote), but I sincerely believe that - with the climactic shot of Lance Corporal William Schofield running alongside the Pas-de-Calais trench as the final attack breaks loose around him, driven only by his devotion to the mission - Mendes has created one of the most iconic sequences of our age's cinema.
Finally, on the note of historical accuracy, you may not need to worry so much with this one. 1917 isn't based on any particular event within World War I, instead dramatizing a tale Mendes' grandfather used to tell him and his siblings. Thus, we can't be sure 1917 is based on a true story at all. You know what grandpas can be like.