Lincoln is thoughtful, poignant

Rating: 8/10 (12 November 2012)

Review by Ray Silveyra www.thatsmye.com
Lincoln is thoughtful,poignant, and with our nation at one of its most important elections,this is a movie that is relevant and important. Though it may not reach the heights to be spoken in association with Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan, with Lincoln, Steven Spielberg adds yet another classic to an unprecedented cannon.
Based on Doris Kearns Goodwin's biography, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, the film follows the President toward the end of the civil war, as he tries to gain passage of the 13th amendment, abolishing slavery. The Civil War is ultimately a backdrop to the struggles Lincoln faces with a divided Congress, an impatient cabinet, and a family that is often treated second to a nation.
The film features a stellar cast that includes Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, Tommy Lee-Jones, Joseph Gordin Levitt, and David Strathairn. The entire cast is utterly superb in their roles, but Tommy Lee-Jones (as Thaddeus Stevens) absolutely commands the screen, delivering his lines with a whipping intensity and a demeanor that is quiet, controlled and critically believable Look, we all know the outcome, we know that the amendment passes, but Spielberg manages to enthrall his audience not from the passage of the amendment but rather, the reasoning behind the amendment. Spielberg so perfectly captures the political arena, that the audience will, without a doubt, be more emotionally invested in its story than any other thing on screen, Lincoln included. Unfortunately, when the movie isn't dealing with the political plot, it tends to drag, only to be picked up again by the political battle that controls the movie. Consequently, when the political plot is resolved, it is difficult to keep further interest in a remaining story that feels secondary and undeveloped. Sadly, yet appropriately, Lincoln dies with the resolution of the political plot. The film's greatest strength, and perhaps its biggest downfall, is that the Amendment, as it was in real life, is bigger than Lincoln himself.
At a time when our nation is deciding its next president and debating the validity of equal marriage, affirmative action, workplace equality, and undocumented immigration, it is appropriate that Lincoln, with the grandeur of Grade-A performances and the epic quality one would expect from a Spielberg film, is outshone by a political battle that is important to know and relevant to apply in our present. In one of his most fragile moments, Daniel Day-Lewis's Abraham Lincoln, asks, "Do we choose to be born? Or do we fit into the time we're born into?" The film may seem self-righteous to some, yet to most it will be evident that Lincoln is an intense, near-perfect film, that, now, more than ever, necessarily fits into the time is it born into.