Movie Number 2 of 2026
The Movie: The Choral
The Cinema: Hoyts Victoria Gardens
Runtime: One hour 53 minutes
Stars: 4
My first English film for the year and it was lovely. Of course, it was always going to be lovely, a little tale about a choir trying to keep going during World War One - and this is a charming, albeit a little idiosyncratically English film about community, challenges and the role art plays in our lives.
When I say gentle, this film, written by Alan Bennett and directed by Nicholas Hynter does what these men have been doing for decades. Producing quintessentially British stories filled with British sensibilities. I'm always up for that.
The story is a fairly simple one. It's 1916. In the fictional town of Ramsden, Yorkshire, many of the town's men have gone off to the Western Front and the town's Choral Society is in a bit of a mess. Their first tenor is missing in action, and others are about to head off to battle. However, in that best of English traditions, they're keeping up and carrying on, even if they need to find a new Choral director.
It's Henry Guthrie (Ralph Fiennes) who steps up to the plate to take this ragtag group of commoners up to the stage. Guthrie has been working in Germany, which makes him an outlier, not that his closeted homosexuality hasn't done that already. On returning to England, Guthrie is having a hard time assimilating after spending so long living in the land of the enemy. But he needs a job and likes a challenge, and rather than perform St Matthews Passion because, after all, Bach was German. They are also lacking singers and members of the orchestra. In the end, they go with performing a little-known work by Elgar.
As with any Alan Bennett screenplay, the town is filled with quirky characters. The Mill owner Duxbury, being the coin, always gets a plum role. There's Mary (Amara Okereke), the Salvation Army member with the voice of an angel. Returned soldier Ellis (Taylor Uttley), missing an arm and some hope, is recruited back into the choir, somewhat reluctantly after his fiance Bella (Emily Fairn) has dumped him for another member of the choir still to be sent off. Pianist Horner (Robert Emms) is called up, only to search his soul and become a conscientious objector.
There's a lot to like here. Although it's not ground-breaking, you have to feel for all of the members of the town. The movie looks at how the war affects all aspects of life and how people react to it/
Simon Russell Beale's cameo as a snotty Elgar is a joy to behold.
For me, it was the music and the musical process that stood up so well. Although most of the singing is shown in rehearsal, the final performance was most wonderful.
Yes, this isn't the best work of the actors, writers and directors, but it is a solidly enjoyable British film, which I'd happily take my mother along to. What I found uplifting was seeing the town work together to form something beautiful in a world filled with violence and sorrow.
It's also a film for those who like classical music and the process it goes through to create it.
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