When Hollywood gets it right, you have a "Lincoln"

Rating: 10/10 (12 February 2013)

Wow, that's what both of us said when regaining our speech after viewing this great film yesterday. I had seriously lost all hope that Hollywood could produce a serious film: a film like other nations seem to turn out with aplomb. But they caught me out yesterday with this marvelous movie that had no bloodshed, no violence of any kind, no talking animals or human figures that mouthed the lines of well known accents. No, this was a serious movie that required some modicum of grey-matter to follow all that was happening as well as a certain amount of old fashioned schoolbook knowledge. On all these accounts a definitely un-American movie. If J. Edgar were around he would have brought all the major players before the House Un-American Activities Committee for reasons that only he could fathom.
I believe, and rightly so, that all the major actors should win Academy Awards: Day-Lewis, Field and Jones. They are simply the standouts but there was not a weak actor in the entire movie. My personal favourite was Tommy Lee Jones but that is only preference. Spielberg should win as director because he brought this bunch together and moulded (I know, I know—it is a trite word but...) the cast into something beyond what it could/should have been.
I thought also that the screenplay was tremendous; the Set Decoration was truly marvelous and the lighting—the lighting, how do you recreate that felling of muted light that would have been the norm at that time? Everything about the film was magical; it is a must-see movie!