Final Rating: 3/5
When many of the young men in Yorkshire enlist to fight in World War I, it leaves a lot of vacancies in a choir known as The Choral. For years, they’ve dependably performed Bach’s St Matthew Passion, but without enough male voices or a choirmaster, the older men who oversee and fund the choir must find replacements if they are to put on their show. Sir Nicholas Hytner’s The Choral unfolds like warm honey as the replacements are found and new challenges impede the choir’s progress.
Lively and economical dialogue make the film’s opening half hour very smooth. In what feels like no time at all, multiple new members of the choir are established: young men on the cusp of being conscripted into the war, young women whose army boyfriends’ fates are unknown, older women who have been in the choir for years and turn their noses up at many of the new arrivals, and the older men in charge of everything, led by a sensitive performance from Roger Allam as Alderman Duxbury.
Shortly thereafter, conflicts arise through the hiring of Ralph Fiennes’ Dr. Henry Guthrie, the new choirmaster. He’s been living in Germany, which causes a lot of ire. He’s an atheist, which angers even further. He’s homosexual, ruffling even more feathers. But, as Duxbury is forced to admit when Guthrie’s name is suggested by Mark Addy’s Joe Fytton, he plays the piano wonderfully.
Guthrie upends the balance of power from the moment he enters the practice hall. He puts everybody through auditions–even the mainstays. The subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) reactions on Fiennes’ face go hand in hand with the way Hytner divulges information in the film. Once the introductions of the characters have occurred, he rarely spells anything out, allowing his performers to convey their emotions and the impeccable production design and locations to cover the rest.
Toward the middle of the film, Tariq Anwar’s editing shines. The successive scenes of everyone recruiting additional voices, the boys going for a swim, and the choir joyously belting out God Save the King upon learning the news that German battleship Pommern has been sunk are masterful. In the span of about fifteen minutes, the film covers an extensive amount of ground without any wasted space.
Two impressive juxtapositions stick out as the most memorable moments in the film. The first is Guthrie’s private grief while the choir celebrates the sinking of the Pommern. The second takes place at the local train station. One train leaves with fresh new soldiers excitedly heading off to war. Another arrives shortly after with the maimed and wounded returning home. The energy, color palate, and score beautifully reflect the opposing emotions filling these moments.
Given the time period and topics in the film, it’s no surprise that the characters condemn many different groups throughout it (all of the ones associated with Dr. Guthrie, as well as several others). However, it’s a double-edged sword in Alan Bennett’s screenplay that these lines are written in a lighthearted way. The Choral isn’t particularly concerned with exploring these feelings, so it handles them with gloves on, using the casual bigotry of the period as a punchline. There’s rarely a worry about these comments amounting to much more than a joke, which keeps the tone in check, but can come across inauthentic. Given Guthrie’s character, it wouldn’t make sense to remove those sentiments from the film, but the screenplay doesn’t confront those issues meaningfully.
The Choral’s narrative loses a little steam when Elgar (Simon Russell Beale), the composer of the work Guthrie has chosen the choir to perform, arrives to bestow his approval upon the company. He hears a brief rehearsal of The Dream of Gorontius and then learns of all the changes Guthrie made to his original composition. It’s a rather lengthy sequence that changes very little about what’s going on. That time could have been better spent adding more depth to the plethora of characters in the choir that have abbreviated arcs over the course of the film. With the exception of Emily Fairn’s Bella, most of the other choir members are presented as comic relief or given a short story arc that has two or three beats at most.
Anchored by strong performances from Ralph Fiennes and Roger Allam, The Choral is a very easy watch that may not linger for long in the minds of viewers. An impressive first half of the film sadly doesn’t nail the landing in the end, but has enough positive qualities to keep itself from toppling over.
Thank you to Mongrel Media and Star PR for the screener.
