Interesting attempt at capturing the essence of an American icon.

Rating: 8/10 (23 November 2012)

The life and career of Abraham Lincoln has been written about so often that to make yet another movie about him suggests that the movie maker has something new to offer on the subject. But that is not the case in this movie. Instead of offering a biopic, the director chooses to limit the scope of the movie to Lincoln's political maneuvering during the Civil War, depicting Lincoln as a crafty politician who is willing to circumvent the rules to establish a personal legacy, a depiction which diminishes Lincoln's greatness. The fact is that Lincoln wanted to transcend partisan politics, not lead it. His career was more than about counting votes or pressuring politicians. For Abraham Lincoln was more than a great president, he was a great man. Working under the most oppressive of conditions, and with the odds of success stacked way against him, he successfully led the nation through its most harrowing time. To portray such a larger-than-life person in a movie without diminishing the legend is a tricky proposition, and in this respect the movie fails because by diminishing Lincoln it diminishes the strength of his story as a drama. The drama of Lincoln's career lies in the very fact of his larger-then-life persona. It is true that Lincoln was a politician, but he was a lot more than that. He had uncanny personal qualities that set him apart from those around him and made him singularly unique. That a man born in the South, with almost no formal education, who started out as a laborer, who had a history of losing elections, had a difficult marriage, lost three of his children, and was despised by a large segment of the population was able to muster the energy and will to lead the effort to preserve the union and abolish slavery is amazing, but also is empirically inexplicable and thus defies dramatic interpretation. In this case, the facts need no embellishing; they can speak for themselves.