I loved this movie. This is the type of rousing, sharp, entirely perceptive big-studio drama that Hollywood almost doesn’t make anymore. [It’s telling that a man many credit with “ruining” the adult aesthetic of the 70’s, Steven Spielberg, is now making some of the most mature and sophisticated films out there.] Some may think it’s “boring” but if you can’t get excited at the backroom deals of some liberal congressmen trying to abolish slavery, that probably says more about you than it does the movie.
What Works: The movie isn’t a standard narrative biopic, it focuses almost entirely on the last four months of Lincoln’s life, and specifically the amendment to end slavery. It’s filled with chestnuts of history I never knew (did Lincoln purposely prolong the Civil War to turn the country and his party against slavery?) and filled with the kind of wheeling and dealing power plays that say “Okay, audience, we’re not going to treat you like idiots, hopefully you’ll like that.”
But it all really boils down to two remarkable performances, and they’re both excellent for very different reasons: First, and most notable is, of course, Daniel Day-Lewis as Lincoln. Day-Lewis is often called “one of the best actors alive” and he’s been so good for so long (you can’t tell it’s the same person in Last of the Mohicans, My Left Foot, Gangs of New York, There Will be Blood, and Jack and Rose) that it’s tempting to take him for granted. [I found myself quietly looking for false notes in his performance, almost to say “Aha! He’s not the best!” but came up very short.] His Lincoln is wise but still sly, warm to strangers but prickly to those closest to him, thoroughly decent yet crafty, and sometimes even vulnerable despite putting up with a super-human amount of stress. Flawless.
But nearly as good is Tommy Lee Jones, playing a very subtle riff on his usual “Tommy Lee Jones-ness.” He comes off like yet another Jones-ian bulldog, but (as Jones did in this year’s under-rated Hope Springs) he pulls out quiet layers of yearning and passion. By the end, when his liberal senator (who has worked his entire life for racial equality) reveals why this fight is so important to him, it was completely surprising yet one of the most touching scenes I’ve watched in a movie this year.
What Doesn’t Work: Sally Field is an important part of this movie as Mrs. Lincoln, but I just couldn’t get into her scenes as much as the larger plot. It’s important color and reveals a very important part of Lincoln himself, but it never quite grabbed me the way nearly everything else did. Likewise, Joseph Gorden-Levitt as Lincoln’s eldest son adds an important dimension to Lincoln-the-man but mostly falls flat in terms of the more interesting stuff.
What I Would Have Done Differently: Why quibble? Go see this movie and see a big studio film done right.