I have a soft spot for historical films, add in music and singing, and this made The Choral one that I really wanted to see. With a cast that includes Ralph Fiennes, I had hope that the film would be interesting. After watching it, I found the movie poignant and powerful, full of quirky characters but most of all, a love of music set during a difficult time in history.
The Choral is a historical drama film set in a fictional town in England during World War I. It is co-produced and directed by Nicholas Hytner and written by Alan Bennett. The film follows the members of a local choral society that, due to losing all of the men to the war, is trying to recruit new members, younger men and women. But they also find themselves without a choral director. So the heads of the society, Bernard Duxbury (Roger Allam), Mr. Futon (Mark Addy), and Mr. Trickett (Alun Armstrong), recruits an unusual choice, Dr. Henry Guthrie (Ralph Fiennes), a homosexual, a Germanophilia and an atheist. A rock thrown through the window protesting the choice of Bach, a German composer, for the choral creates a need for them to choose a different piece so they end up performing Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius. Guthrie gets approval by Elgar and the group goes to work, recruiting more men to fill out the chorus all while various dramas play out within the group such as two of the singers starting a relationship, the pianist Robert Horner (Robert Emms) being conscripted and another singer coming back from war with his arm shot off. The choral becomes about how the war impacts young and old alike.
Part of what I liked about the film besides the excellent performances is the music. I did chorus and music in college and so that love of all things music stays with me. Music can change lives, uplift emotions and create change. And that is the very point of the film. From the beginning, the movie shows us how the village has changed due to the men going off to war, the impact of deaths on families and friends as well as the loss of voices to sing in the choral. When even the music director goes off to war, those in charge of the group must make a decision. They choose Henry Guthrie because despite the difficulty surrounding his choice, he truly understands music and the impact it has on others. He is exacting and difficult to please but ultimately he understands that music makes a difference. It is the musical performances that hold together the film, The music is beautiful as are the performances by the singers. 
The story is slow at times and focuses on the drama within the lives of those performing, including Guthrie and the pianist Robert Horner. The characters are quirky, unusual and the story is quite funny at times despite the looming war. The young men are focused on managing to get girlfriends before they are sent off to war. One of the women falls in love after her young man is presumed dead and then must deal with the impact when he comes back alive but wounded. Robert Horner doesn’t want to go to war and the story deals with the cost of that decision. The quirkiness of the characters, including the older men helps lighten the story and makes the film engaging.
The performance of Ralph Fiennes is powerful as is normal for his acting. He brings a presence to the role of Henry Guthrie but also emotional weight. His exacting nature and demand for perfection is tempered by the need to make a powerful story with the music he has. The performance of Roger Allum as Duxbury is painful at times, as we learn of loss in his family but also the pain of loving singing even when he’s not the best performer. The other performances are skilled, funny and create a poignant, powerful film.
What fails the film is the lack of focus. While the choral is nominally the focus, the film also dives into the drama of the older men, the young men and their possible recruitment to war and the impact on the younger women. But the problem is that other than the music, there is nothing quite unifying about the story other than the war. There is a bit too much happening and not enough focus. While the music is beautiful and the idea of music making a change to a group of people does come through at the end, the lack of focus still shows in the majority of the film.
If you like films about music or are a fan of Ralph Fiennes and his beautiful performances, I still think you will like The Choral. It is a poignant and powerful story, with tons of emotion and wonderful music. The singing is exquisite and the acting is skilled. While there could be more focus, the drama is both engaging and fun, especially the various relationships as well as the impact of the war. I enjoyed the movie immensely.
Rating: 4 out of 5 photos
Leave a Reply