In Terence Davies’ “Benediction,” a moving portrait of English war poet Siegfried Sassoon, the blessing bestowed is both literal and cinematic. While older Siegfried (Peter Capaldi) receives a blessing from a priest while converting to Catholicism, much to the chagrin of his adult son, George (Richard Goulding), the true benediction of “Benediction” is much more than just the on-screen ritual. The blessing of the film is the film itself, and the extraordinary grace that Davies extends toward his subject, a poet who made his pain public but had to keep his intimate life private.
Sassoon is known for his searing antiwar poems that depicted the brutality of the trenches during World War I. When we meet young Siegfried Sassoon (Jack Lowden), a second lieutenant and already an accomplished writer, he has written a letter of protest refusing to participate in a war with whose political aims he no longer agrees.
Aided by his friends in the literary community, including mentor and former Oscar Wilde paramour Robbie Ross (Simon Russell Beale), Siegfried manages to escape a court martial, and lands in a Scottish hospital for “nervous disorders.” It’s there that he will encounter and work with another noted WWI poet, Wilfred Owen (Matthew Tennyson), and dare to open up about “the love that dare not speak its name,” his own homosexuality, which was at that time illegal in England.
The film jumps back and forth between Siegfried’s charmed young life cavorting with the bright young things in postwar England and his reality 30 years later, married to a woman, Hester Gatty (Gemma Jones), as he reckons with the trauma that continues to haunt his memories, from the war as well as the romances that rocked his world, including with the actor and songwriter Ivor Novello (Jeremy Irvine), and socialite Stephen Tennant (Calam Lynch).
Davies’ script, which is dense with dialogue both complex and catty, is a finely tuned episodic piece, hopping between the significant moments of Sassoon’s life, juxtaposing some, eliding others. However, Davies puts Sassoon’s words first and foremost. Lowden and Capaldi offer recitations of Sassoon’s poems in voice-over narration, often paired with archival footage and photographs of the First World War that underscores the importance of Sassoon’s work in laying bare the details of war—patriotism and protocol be damned.
These experimental sequences, including one that blends images of war with archival footage of cattle herding and the classic cowboy tune “Riders in the Sky,” call our attention to the self-conscious craft of the film, and Davies also toys with theatrical and fantastical techniques and transitions. The heightened awareness of the filmmaking craft brings the audience's attention to the message of pacifism that Davies layers throughout this unconventional biopic.
The care with which Davies approaches Sassoon’s complex love life also underscores the antiwar message of this film. While the gay characters have to mask their full authenticity, and Sassoon suffers his fair share of heartbreak, his romances are sexy, dramatic and funny. Davies positions love and sex against the senseless pain and destruction of war as a way of asserting humanity, and indeed the humanity of gay men living closeted but thrilling lives in 1920s England.
“Benediction” isn’t the kind of biopic that lays out every detail and event of Sassoon’s life, but rather it quilts together the major moments that made him, offering a deeply felt, poetic and profound character study. Lowden is wildly compelling as young Siegfried, and Davies’ masterly portrait of the man and his work is both a loving tribute to him, and a commanding statement against the senselessness of war, a sentiment that could not be more timely.
———
‘BENEDICTION’
3.5 stars (out of 4)
MPAA rating: PG-13 (for disturbing war images, some sexual material and thematic elements)
Running time: 2:17
How to watch: In theaters Friday
———
