Lincoln - five drama hearts

I'm not American so Abe Lincoln is really of little interest to me. The Yanks make such a fuss of their presidents and expect everyone to kowtow to the office... yada yada so going to see this movie with a low expectation, I was blown away.

I should have known that Daniel Day Lewis (isn't it 5 movies in 15 years?) is the consummate actor and an adroit selector of screenplays. He would have made The Road a good movie somehow...

I had no idea of how profoundly wise Lincoln was. For a basically uneducated man he read widely and had sufficient intelligence to connect his learning to life. I knew he'd fought against slavery, but like the cameraman filming a baby elephant's death, the enormity did not hit me until I saw the film run; it was just facts on a page.

It was an emotional film but not sentimental in the least (which it could easily have slipped into). The depth of character from Tommy Lee, Field, Holbrook, McGill, Gordon-Levitt (yum), Stathairn, Spader... the cast was truly superb... created a reality that had you right there with them.

When Lewis and Fields are fighting about Robert joining the army, their marriage all came together for me. I too plonked myself down onto the floor in a vast ruffle of petticoats and looked up into Lincoln's eyes. She'd seemed a bit of a drama queen til then, you'd almost come to the point of thinking for heaven's sake you must overcome your son's death; you can't keep doing this to your husband, to your other sons, to yourself... but suddenly I could see through her eyes and suddenly I saw why he too loved her and stayed. They had a deep and mutual respect for each other. She had done his grieving for him. He understood that and suddenly she did too. It was a profound moment the audience were priveleged to share within the darkest depths of a marriage.

And that was just a moment in the marriage; a sideline if you will to the main object of the story- to tell of the struggle in the weeks leading up to the monumental moment when slavery was abolished and the constitution finally upheld and the foundation of modern human rights born.

Day-Lewis' performance was sublime. The cast upheld him admirably. Spielberg's a genius. American negroes are my heroes for all they've patiently and bravely been through (and are still undergoing). Go see it.