User reviews

The film is satisfying for the most part - I just wished there was another hour tagged onto the ending which would show us how he created some of his legendarium.

The film mainly focuses on his friendships and romance with Edith in school - very little of the war was shown. Also showed his relationships with a couple of his teachers.

You will easily see in the film how things connected to his books - hidden references as well obvious ones.

Very good movie if you like biographies, romances and/or Tolkien.

8/10

Tolkien (3.5 out of 5 stars).

Tolkien is a beautifully done biographical drama film about a famous fantasy writer J.R.R. Tolkien who went on to write The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings series. It touched the base when him and his brother lost their mother to some illness. J.R.R. then went to a school where he met a few other teenagers that he did not get along with. Until, eventually they become close friends. There bond grows stronger over the years and they inspire each other to make a difference. He meets Edith (Lily Collins) who he falls in love with. He gets separated when he is drafted into World War 1.

The plot is pretty decent for a biographical film about J.R.R. Tolkien. The movie was a bit slow in the second act with Tolkien and his fellowship friends talking about stories. It could have been better handled. The plot is inspirational. Tolkien and his friends no matter how often they fight with each other, they will always be brothers. Tolkien and Edith fall deeply in love until they go on different paths. Years later, they come across each other again.

Nicholas Hoult is great as Tolkien. Lily Collins was also good as Edith. The music score by Thomas Newman is beautifully done. The direction delivers the eerie tone during the World War 1 scenes. Tolkien suffering from an illness. And trying to find his friends. When they are attacked. He witnesses most of his man killed in combat. Which he feels like he is isolated and he starts seeing visions of dragons out of flamethrowers. Or the aftermath smoke from the explosions looking like a dark lord Sauron. Which he uses his experience to write a fantasy story. While his one focus theme is the journey that everyone goes too and the experiences they face.

Overall, Tolkien is a pretty fair film. The plot is a bit inspirational and emotional with the journey Tolkien experiences. Sadly, the film suffers from an uneven pace in the second act of the movie. The performances and music score is fantastic.

Tolkien recounts the defining people and moments of the author's life.

Since the Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit movies interest has increased in Tolkien himself. While this film is no adventure it is both funny and touching as the subject evolves like one of the characters in his stories. This is interesting and I did enjoy it.

I'd have preferred it if the timeline had stretched a little bit further and covered more of his life than it does. The flash-forwards were well done up to that point.

I liked, 'Get off the lawn!'

...because it represents more than a biopic. Because it gives a bitter - poetic portrait of familiar things. From friendship to bitter choices, from love to discover of vocation, from war to the most significant small things defining you. Because it is real well acted and has inspired script and propose a version of Tolkien ' s life more touching and precise than I expect. A film about war and passion and friendship and love , seductive for the game of nuances and for a sort of...magic. And, sure, Nicholas Hould seems the most wise option for the roles of real, real special writers.

Tolkien was an unashamedly highly devout Catholic. The movie completely misses all of this.

For example, the movie opens with the Tolkien family thrust into poverty. It skips the fact that this was because Tolkien's mother converters to Catholicism in a very anti-Catholic Britain and was ostracised by her family who would not support her at all. Many more such examples missed. Tolkien called his mother a "martyr for Catholicism" and that The Lord of the Rings was fundamentally "a Catholic story."

The film's main problem is it doesn't want to be about what it is about. The film is largely a series of episodes of how various things (events, people, other works etc.) influenced the Middle Earth texts. But the film resists trying to draw 1 to 1 parallels between Tolkien's life and his fictional world.The film goes out of its way to avoid allegory. This is somewhat admirable given Tolkien's famous distaste for allegory but at the same time there's too much of the Middle Earth texts in the film to avoid making the connections. And the film clearly wants you to make those connections. This split aim makes the film have no real narrative drive. I do like how sometimes the narrative unspecified symbolism allows you to read several aspects of Tolkien's mythology into a scene. There was 2-3 times an ambiguous reference to either Sauron or Morgoth.

While the film is in the batting average for historical accuracy for Hollywood it weirdly ignores obvious things to discuss. The film greatly downplays Tolkien's Catholicism to the point where he doesn't seem any more devout than a random guy from that time period. Worse the film spends a lot of time on his courtship with Edith and the film just doesn't use the bit about Tolkien proposing at 12:01 on his 21st birthday. This makes Tolkien a less complex figure for removing his stubbornness.

However much the film's story is lacking I love the direction-cinematography in this film. There is a ton of very provocative and lyrical images that feel more Middle Earth to me than the weaker parts of the Jackson films. The film is handsome and despite the narrative drive being missing it doesn't get bogged down. It plays out like a standard coming of age tale, abet a more artistic one.

With all that being said Hoult's performance is easily the best part of the film and I wish it was in a much better film. I don't think he will ever top R but this a very touching naturalistic take on an icon.

The story and the excellent cinematography alone make for agood film. For some reason they forced in elements that had the effect of pandering to the weak minded. The film would have been much improved if these elements were left out.

It's enough to see a fellowship develop in the prep school and the visual scenes of WWI without CG of dragon silhouettes and ghosts in gas clouds. We audience members can make connections on our own and guess at what inspired him. I doubt he was thinking about dragons while seeing an actual flamethrower used in warfare.

The real story was in the details and they were good.

I am a huge Tolkien fan and after reading some of the critics reviews I was a bit wary of seeing this film. I do not know which film the "critics" have seen but from their conclusions I do not recognise this film. I have literally just left the cinema, I found it so moving that I found myself in floods of tears. Beautifully acted, and set against the backdrop of WW1 the sense of loss and the harrowing reality of what war is came across in such depth. I loved the focus on language and the weight it can carry, It made me feel that words are in their own right living creatures. This is one of the few films that has not just entered my brain but is also in my heart. Please go and see this film whether you are a Tolkien fan or not, it is truly captivating.

The works of Tolkien are seminal and this film tries to pull gently from his first 24 years the threads that may have begun the weave of those later writings. It is also a story of the love within a brotherhood. And, the love of Tolkien for Edith Bratt, played beautifully by Nicholas Hoult and Lily Collins. It's a quiet film with beautiful photography, music and performances and it takes its time to interlace the emotions and images, so this is not a movie for the restless. I give this film a 7 (good) out of 10. {Biographical Drama}

Tolkien is a biopic about the early life of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy/The Hobbit author J.R.R. Tolkien. Starring Nicholas Hoult in the lead role, it is a well-intended, yet muddled look at the acclaimed author's legacy.

As a young man, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (Nicholas Hoult) befriends a group of three outcasts at school who help him to find his place in the world and support him in his creative endeavours. Over time, John meets Edith Bratt (Lily Collins), a young pianist with whom he falls in love and becomes his muse. Eventually, however, World War I breaks out and John is sent off to fight in the trenches at the Battle of the Somme, separating him from some of his friends and the love of his life.

Despite a solid premise, Tolkien ultimately struggles to elevate its intriguing subject matter above merely being another outcast author. The film chooses to omit important details about Tolkien, such as his strong Christian faith influencing his writings, instead opting for a more fantasy driven approach. In addition to this, the pacing is painfully slow most of the time, showcasing some of the least interesting aspects of what inspired Tolkien to write his novels in the first place. With that said, the film is at least nice to look at thanks to some creative cinematography during Tolkien's musings and Nicholas Hoult's well-acted performance in the title role. It's a shame that so much overall effort was put in to producing so little of interest.

I rate it 6/10

I really-really loved this film, I was engaged all the time! I liked discovering how things in Tolkien's early life actually influenced the book itself.

The scenes are so well crafted, there is a lot of attention to details and the cinematography is absolutely top quality, very atmospheric. But this would be nothing without a good script and good acting. And I loved both, the two main actors' performance is really good, I was "with them" all the time.

If you liked "Imitation Game" or "Theory of Everything" then you will like this too. Highly recommended.

The only name I recognized in the cast was Colm Meaney, who everyone knows was O'Brien in the Star Trek films. And of course Kallum Tolkien, who must be a descendant of the main subject. Nick Hoult (from the X Men) stars as J. Tolkien himself, an orphan, who created the realm of the Hobbit, followed by the Lord of the Ring Trilogy, and its stories and occupants. The old story of Good versus Evil. According to wikipedia dot com, Tolkien was a good friend of C. S. Lewis, another writer who created an entire world of escape, right around the time of world war one. He served for a few years, but was quite sickly by the end, and was given a disability pension, according to wiki. He had based some of the hobbit on his travels to the mountains while on vacation. Forming a literary club with his college buddies, he was determined to finish his degree before serving as a soldier. And always writing.. creating languages and detailed, far-away places. With adventure and purpose. It's good. We feel the mystery and creativity that he experienced growing up. Directed by cyprus and finnish Dome Karukoski, who had just directed Tom of Finland. Story by David Gleeson and Stephen Beresford.

A story as romantic as biographical of the first three decades of J.R.R. Tolkien, who is best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion: his childhood and adolescence just before the first world war and his decisive encounters (Edith Bratt who will become his wife, the professor Joseph Wright who will turn his mentor and help him to to enter to the University of Oxford, and his friends with whom he will form a brotherhood, or even a fellowship). The analogies with his novels are obvious: the Ringwraiths a.k.a. the Nazgûl between the German trenches of the Bay of the Somme, or even Sauron on his black horse and his huge sword. The film portrays also the manifold sources of inspiration such as Nordic cultures / languages or operas like Der Ring des Nibelungen composed by Richard Wagner. The photography, the Computer-Generated Imagery and the costumes are excellent. The movie reflects reality more or less closely (the audience shall then dissociate the real from the fantasy) but is globally poetic. 6/7 of 10.

Tolkien was a genius. That's all you need to know. Not having the best start in life and having to cope with the horrors of life in the trenches it is even more incredible that he survived to become one of the greatest writers to have ever lived. That is Tolkien. The film however is a different beast and whilst an entirely watchable and credible movie, we'll acted and well written, it's just not that interesting. Not to say Tolkien's life was boring, far from it. You just have this overwhelming desire to be watching the fantasies inside his head that pepper the movie more than the biopic that is this film. It does however paint a picture of privileged classes and their education in the early 1900s that our American friends will find most quaint. In summary a reasonable film and a story that needed to be told, but it never really gets going. A remarkable brain inside a less than remarkable film.

I have no intention to degrade or under-appreciate the movie itself, it was good. It follows Tolkien education and formation, as well as his love life. I believe it was inspiring, especially when the four boys got together and studied together, it somehow pushed my consciousness to be more dedicated to studying or adopt an attitude of constant improvement.

However.. and perhaps this turns out to be a personal preference (or call it fantasy if you like), I was expecting more of the writing itself, the post publishing life, his years as a professor. I was expecting more of his research, of his dedication, of his world building, of his... but some people find these things boring. Perhaps LOTR fans will relate.

From this point of view, I would rate the movie 1/10, because the actual writing that happens takes two to three minutes of the movie, which is sad, but I still want to believe the movie was quite good and that it catches key moment of Tolkien life that had a certain impact on his inspiration and world crafting.

For me, it just ended unexpectedly where I actually hoped it would start. Looking forward for part 2. (cries in Elvish)

A beautiful story about JRR Tolkien's growth from an orphan boy into a writer, professor and a husband. A plausible explanation how a mind so unlike any other before could develop. Horrors of the Great War frame the story, but it is not a war movie. It is a movie about friendship, love and strong feelings. The visual outcome is dramatic, and I liked th

Imagine a story about the man who singlehandedly invented Anglo fantasy, who wrote Lord of the Rings, invented at least one language, influenced all fantasy computer games ever made. What would you put in it? The feelings of fellowship to his closest friends? The heart shattering love for a woman that seems more magical and alive than any other? The battles he fought? The evil that seemed to permeate the world and that had to be fought, regardless of consequences? Maybe his thoughts as he wrote his works?

Well, this movie tries to do that, only it doesn't go anywhere. His friendship with his colleagues is the most prominent thing, but without presenting anything that made that friendship strong except getting drunk with his mates and talking geek. Then there is the love for his lodging mate Edith, which he ends up marrying, also episodic and chaste. His children only appear at the end. The war is shown from a fever induced quest in the trenches of the battle of the Somme to find his friend. The film moves from him almost being expelled to him being a university professor in a few scenes. The story ends just as he starts writing The Hobbit, so his writing years are not even in this. The most personal conflict you see in the film is when he punches his friend and immediately apologizes.

It's not that the movie wasn't accurate, I have no idea if it was, but it felt as if Tolkien was a really really boring man and the most exciting part of his life, even dramatized and stitched together was still really boring. There are no bits in the film that made me feel anything for anyone. Capitalizing on the Tolkien name, this movie goes nowhere.

A beautiful movie looking at Tolkien's life from childhood to the great war.Nicholas Hoult as Tolkien is superb, as is all the cast, and the direction and speed of the film are just right. I loved the way the film explored his love of languages, which is of course so essential to Middle-Earth. You don't need to be a lover of Tolkien to enjoy this film, just a lover of film.

Tolkien: Not quite the romantic warrior professor but certainly all three of the preceding in part. Tolkien had a tough early life, falling into impecunity, his mother had to move with J.R.R. (Harry Gilby as the young Tolkien) and his brother from a rural idyll to the satanic mills and factories of Birmingham, an early model for Mordor no doubt. Then getting excessively MisLit, his mother (Laura Donnelly) dies and he is fostered by an elderly rich lady and along with his brother gets scholarships to an exclusive school. His family's benefactor, always working behind the scenes, is Father Morgan (Colm Meaney), benevelovent but steely in his determination when Tolkien's romance with Edith threatens his chances of getting an Oxford scholarship. Morgan may have been the inspiration for Gandalf.

At school Tolkien founds a Fellowship with other artistically minded students bur the Great War will wreak havoc on that brotherhood. The film cuts between Tolkien's earlier life and the trenches of the Somme. This is literally Hell, a real Mordor. The adult J.R.R .(Nicholas Hoult) is on a (perhaps allegorical) quest to the Front to find one of the Fellowship who is missing in action. He passes through mud holes full of bodies and fever stricken imagines that a german with a flamethrower is a dragon. The film suggests many inspirations for his books, Edith (Lily Collins) as an Elven Princess, his mother's reading tales of dragons when he was a boy, the War, his schooldays. A great influence on him was the philologist Professor Wright (Derek Jacobi) who won him over to the study of Old English and Gothic languages. Directed by Dome Karukoski from a screenplay by David Gleeson and Stephen Beresford, Tolkien is an engaging account of the earlier life of the scholar and author. 8/10

This is not a documentary, of course, and accuracy can only be demanded to a very limited extent. The acting was wonderful, the script very well written with a small gripe and the structure and pacing of this movie were perfect.

Lily Collins is stunning and elegant as Edith. However, after seeing her in several interviews it was a sore disappointment to learn that she's a far cry from the admirable lady she portrays. A testament to her acting, of course, less so for her personality.

Nicholas Hoult as Tolkien was very good, as the character in the movie he was very convincing however as far as the real Tolkien goes, far less so. But that's not his fault, that's where my main gripe with the writing comes into play. None of Tolkien's wit and mastery of the English language was really shown anywhere. I understand that the movie had to be dramatically dumbed down for the benefit of the butter guzzling popcorn munchers on whom the financial success of this movie depends... but still, this is a movie about Tolkien and that was one of his most defining traits.

Nicholas Hoult plays an adult J. R. R. Tolkien, Harry Glby Tolkien as a child. It largely moves between his days in public school, where he made lifelong friends, his time in college, and on the battlefield in the Great War.

The editing, which cuts between the three times, helps keep things interesting, as does a fine cast, including Lily Collins, Colm Meaney, and a five-minute turn by Derek Jacobi that turns the movie into something more than a cleverly-edited piece that ends up where we knew where it all would. This movie is intended to appeal to those who are captivated by Tolkien's work, and so know something about his life. Although there are some striking images, it adds nothing to what is already understood.