THE CHORAL – Review by Lynn Venhaus
With music a wholesome unifier, The Choral is a character-driven wartime drama told in an old-fashioned way that reflects British customs and attitudes in 1916.
The Choral Society in Ramsden, Yorkshire, is determined to keep singing while young men are being called to the western front. The local committee recruits a chorus master, Dr. Henry Guthrie (Ralph Fiennes), who has moved back after a career in Germany.
He is demanding and driven, and some have doubts about what secrets he may have, but they forge ahead. Fiennes is ideally suited to play this rigid, uncompromising music man, who is attempting to work with what he has.
As always in films, any time there is an audition scene, it’s a blend of funny and sweet – to see the mix of talent and those who need to work harder.
Expect to be introduced to fussbudgets, busybodies, old biddies, and fuddy-duddies as singers come together to lift their voices for a recital. The film emphasizes sacrifices and community, and how music makes the townsfolk forget World War I for a bit.
At least everyone is earnest, and trying to focus on joy instead of despair, but the impact of the war is hard to ignore, as young men return wounded or scarred in other ways.
The conflicts resulting from producing an intricate choral composition drive the story, too, for the rehearsals are a primary setting. Because Dr. Guthrie is neither a family man or man of God, townsfolk are tsk-tskers, but they really don’t like Germans or anything Teutonic-related because they’re the ‘enemy.’
That means not singing any works by German composers, which limits what is chosen. Dr. Guthrie selected Edward Elgar’s masterwork The Dream of Gerontius, a British composer, whose oration is adapted from a poem by John Henry Newman, a British theologian. The chorus is assigned roles as angels, demons, souls in Purgatory, and other attendants.
The film is the fourth collaboration by director by Nicholas Hytner and writer Alan Bennett, who were acclaimed for The Madness of King George, The History Boys, and The Lady in the Van, adaptations of Bennett’s plays.
Accomplished storytellers, with British sensibilities, yet the film feels perfunctory and restrained. It is rather theatrical in its staging, only it’s not very original or fresh, although some characters are more engaging than others.
Amara Okereke is likeable as Mary, who collects for the Salvation Army, but really has a wonderful voice.
Mill owner Alderman Duxbury (Roger Allam), who lost his son in the war, is funding the choir, and is an interesting supporting character. His sidekick Joe Fytton, a professional photographer who takes pictures of the soldiers before they had to combat, is played by charmer Mark Addy.
Emily Fairn is young, conflicted Bella, whose boyfriend Clyde (Jacob Dudman) is a soldier missing in action. He returns with an arm missing and joins the choir. A trio of best buddies – Ellis (Taylor Uttley), Lofty (Oliver Briscombe) and Mitch (Shaun Thomas) – are about to turn 18, and are on a sexual experience quest, one of the side threads. There is a woman in town, Mrs. Bishop (Lyndsey Marshal), that provides such services to all the lonely people.
The great British actor Simon Russell Beale shows up briefly as Elgar, who is horrified at the changes made to his work, and enlivens the film by his blustery cameo.
With its tonal mix of comedy-drama, the narratives crowd the story arc and seem to be scattered, not cohesive, with an ending that feels lackluster. While the film looks good, the music is moving, and the ensemble cast is engaging, one wonders if this wouldn’t have been better suited as a PBS program import on Sunday evenings.
