THE CHORAL is an earnest, often twee but ultimately rather moving film about a fictional choir in a Northern town putting on a performance of Elgar’s Dream of Gerontius in the midst of World War One. Death looms over the entire film. It opens with a young lad delivering telegrams to mothers and wives reporting the death of their loved ones at the Front. The Choral has to recruit new men to take up the places of those fighting, or worse, killed. The pianist leaves to join up. We see men carried off to war on one train, and invalids return on the next. In this context, one might ask about the relevance of a libretto focussed on an old man dying and a fight for his immortal soul. And so the choirmaster recuts and recasts the oratorio as the story of a young soldier killed in France, with the angel beckoning him to Paradise recast as a young nurse calling him home.
The film is taken at a measured pace that I occasionally found too languorous. It is handsomely directed by Nicholas Hytner but I found the production design rather Farrow and Ball - curated to within an inch of its life - all eggshell blues and taupe. Similarly, while the film is handsomely acted by an ensemble cast led by Ralph Fiennes and Roger Allum, I often felt that the script didn’t give them enough to do. I would have loved to have seen the love story between the choirmaster and the pianist developed a little more. That said, there is a rather smashing cameo from Simon Russell Beale as a bloviating Elgar. And among the younger cast members I was particularly impressed by the young actor playing the lead tenor whose name I cannot find on IMDB. It’s also worth saying that the music is beautifully done, including a bravura fifteen minute compressed version of the concert by George Fenton. Truly, to quote the choirmaster Dr Guthrie, “art does come from art”.
The script is by the legendary national treasure Alan Bennett, and features his trademark wry and often deadpan wit. There are plenty of chuckles. I was, however, surprised by just how frank this film is about sex. One of the choristers is a prostitute, and unsurprisingly a couple of the young lads going to war are obsessed with losing their virginity before they go. This side of the film sometimes sits awkwardly with the more “heritage” tone of the rest of the piece, but I think that’s the point. These are just young lads, then as now. And we sent them off to die. It’s hard not to get caught up in the emotion of that final scene.
THE CHORAL has a running time of 113 minutes and is rated R. It played Toronto and London. It opens in the UK on November 7th and in the USA on December 25th.
