a masterly take on an immortal personality

Rating: 8/10 (12 January 2014)

Difficult one to review as it's so multi-faceted. Abraham Lincoln as a character is without doubt one of the greatest, most famous, iconic, influential and brilliant men in the history of the World - especially the USA - and this is an educational, historically interesting, powerfully emotive depiction of that man and a snapshot of one of the most important moments in American (and World) history. The film is complicated to watch in that it's not slowed or dumbed down so you have to concentrate, and the writing is fast, intelligent and witty; I feel that the language was time-appropriate and the accents were good (to a non-American's ear) and Daniel Day-Lewis had clearly worked hard on his mannerisms to inhabit such a well-loved character. Day-Lewis's facial prostheses and SFX were superb, and the costume of all the characters fantastic. Sally Field was also well cast and performed well as Mary Lincoln and the scene where they both yell at each other/over each other's voices was particularly good; over the memory of the loss of their young son.
Tommy Lee Jones and James Spader were both stand out actors/characters and some of the comic relief of the film, which was a surprising addition. The scene where Spader's is shot at and runs away and has time to run back while the firer is reloading his pistol is laugh out loud hilarious and Lee Jones has some funny lines too, which makes the dryness of the film a little more light hearted. Lincoln also was quite the raconteur and lover of funny tales which make Day-Lewis' character charming too. There's an all-star ensemble cast, so many of the actors are famous faces. One of them, Joseph Gordon-Levitt although a small role showed up how good he was an an actor, and the little boy who played Lincoln's youngest son was also particularly stand out talented.
The screenplay and Spielberg's direction and ambition for this film were of a grand scale, lots of extras and little (apparently) in the way of CGI, which is good, and whilst I can find little to criticise with the direction and spectacle of the film as a whole, and it's emotional force, some of the cutting between scenes was a tad odd and jumpy, but I can't say that it bothered me so much, it was just worth mentioning. I liked reference to his diaries and, I thought, a sneaky reference to Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter or perhaps that was just my imagination.