over-rated ponderous paean

Rating: 5/10 (18 January 2014)

This film is well-made and on a superficial level enjoyable. Day-Lewis as usual dominates and deserves recognition for a great performance. But the weakness of the film - and I believe it is a serious one - is that it is so serious. It is a monumental paean of praise of Lincoln and the amendment abolishing slavery in the United States. There is precious little entertainment value in it.
I won't comment on the fact that the practise of slavery was never recognised in English law, and that the slave trade was abolished generations earlier in the British Empire (and it didn't take a bloody civil war to achieve that). Nor will I comment on the excesses of the Federal Government in the so-called Reconstruction Era, which saw the systematic destruction of what remained of the confederate economy and social structures, thereby condemning southerners, both black and white, to generations of poverty.
The film does show Lincoln's weakness as well as his vision. As a period piece it is quite successful, though at times it does suffer from the common problem of portraying events through modern eyes.