A Disappointment. But Daniel-Day Lewis is Great

Rating: 7/10 (17 November 2012)

I really wanted to love "Lincoln." I was hoping for a biopic that would be both intimate and spectacular. I wanted the film to sweep me away and bring me close to an historical figure in the way that "A Man for All Seasons" allowed audiences to feel close to Sir Thomas More, or "Lawrence of Arabia" created an unforgettable impression of T. E. Lawrence. I was hoping at least for a film as good as John Ford's "Young Mr. Lincoln."
Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln" felt more like an educational docudrama than a gripping feature film. Daniel Day-Lewis, though, gives a commanding performance as Lincoln. You should see the film. It is good. It's just not anywhere near good enough.
It's hard to believe that Steven Spielberg, one of the most successful and influential Hollywood directors of all time, could have made a film so plodding and wooden. Scriptwriter Tony Kushner is a Pulitzer-prize winner. I would have to guess that Mr. Kushner did not win that prize for crafting gripping, dramatic scripts charged with dramatic tension and driven by character-revealing plot.
The film is entitled "Lincoln" but it would be more aptly titled "The Passing of the 13th Amendment Outlawing Slavery." This shift of focus may have been done to make the film "relevant."
It's a high school English class truism that the main character of a story is the one who changes. Abraham Lincoln does not change in this film. In many scenes, he feels like a statue in the corner. Lincoln deputizes WN Bilbo (James Spader) to hustle up the necessary votes. Spader is terrific as Bilbo, and he almost steals the movie. It's Bilbo who is moving and shaking. Lincoln just hangs back and comes out with a quip or bon mot or folksy, homespun tale or spooky prophetic dream every now and then. Heck, the animatronic Lincoln at Disneyland could do everything that Spielberg and Kushner allow their Lincoln to do.
Sally Field is too old to play Mary Todd Lincoln, who was in her forties at the time, with a young son. In her every scene, all I kept thinking was, "So, how is Sally Field doing as Mary Todd Lincoln?" I was never able to forget that it was Field I was looking at, never able to escape the fact that I was watching a film rather than being immersed in a story.
Many of the actors seem to have a hard time delivering Kushner's lengthy sentences. There is a scene where Mary Todd Lincoln is, in a long-winded manner, telling off Thaddeus Stevens (Tommy Lee Jones) at a formal dinner, and it is so stiff it feels like a high school production. Daniel Day-Lewis never has this problem with the dialogue.
David Strathairn is terrific as William Seward, Lincoln's secretary of state. He and DDL are utterly convincing in their scenes together. You really get a sense that these are two political partners with differing styles who are struggling as best they can toward a common goal – ending slavery. At one point Lincoln grievously disappoints Seward, and he dismisses Seward by remarking, "Time is a great thickener of things." Seward's response is priceless. The movie comes to life at that moment. It is depicting a vital but trouble relationship, how that relationship vents its anger, how it heals its wounds, how it struggles onward toward a hoped-for goal. If more time had been devoted to Lincoln and Seward's relationship, "Lincoln" would have been a better film.
Tommy Lee Jones delivers the biting insults of Thaddeus Stevens, Pennsylvania congressman and chairman of the House Ways and Means committee. Stevens' insults, and his ridiculous wig, and Tommy Lee Jones' persona and voice, are so striking that Stevens almost becomes a caricature. He bellows that another house member is a reptile too low to step upon. The film doesn't get beyond that. It doesn't bring us into the mind of a white man courageous enough to battle slavery. There is a great, brave, brief scene where Lincoln and Stevens speak face-to-face and one-on-one. Stevens talks about his contempt for the common man. How could such a contemptuous person fight for human dignity? It's a conundrum the film doesn't plumb. Lincoln responds to Stevens with a terrific metaphor about compasses and swamps. Again, if there had been more of this kind of intelligent, challenging, and focused dialogue, this would have been a better film.
My major disappointment with this film is that it didn't bring me any closer to Lincoln. There is something about Lincoln that defies the limitations of his time and place, and, therefore, understanding of him. He is truly larger than life. In the many photos of him, we see a compelling but inaccessible man. His features, with their marked facial asymmetry, grip and confound us – they invite, and resist, intimacy. He married a woman rumored to be mad. He was rumored to be a homosexual. He was martyred on Good Friday and it is said he haunts the White House. Daniel Day-Lewis' performance made me feel close to Lincoln, but the plot and direction didn't support that. I left disappointed.
The production values are lavish. Scenes are chock-a-block with authentic, accurate, books, costumes, boot buckles, mustache combs, clay jugs, corsets, wallpaper. You almost get a whiff of the stale air of a museum. I look forward to watching the extra-feature-packed DVD that will include a chart with little arrows pointing to each object and offering its provenance, age, and construction materials.