Is Hollywood Warring With History Here?

"Amazing Grace" tells the story of William Wilberforce, whose 20-year campaign to end the slave trade in the British Empire met fierce opposition in Parliament. Jenny Hansell and her mate, Fred Baumgarten, write their review, as always, via instant messaging.

JH: Once again, a group of top-notch British actors takes the rest of us to school. The performances in this film were almost universally spectacular.

FB:Huzzah! Except the movie was a bloody waste of all that talent (particularly Albert Finney, who plays a former slave ship owner, who wrote the song "Amazing Grace" as atonement).

JH: As a biography of a fascinating and heroic figure, it was a throwback to an earlier age of filmmaking. It illuminated a moment of history that I, for one, knew little about. Wilberforce, played with ferocious intensity by Ioan Gruffudd, isn’t necessarily someone I’d pal around with: holier-than-thou, single-minded, and mostly humorless, but also brilliant and quick-witted and shot through and through with the moral fire to end injustice.

FB:Oh pish! This was Hallmark-Hall-of-Fame moviemaking at its most insipid, an unfortunate specialty of director Michael Apted, who has shown a talent for taking weighty historical events and bowdlerizing them (after Bowdler, the English editor who published a sanitized version of Shakespeare’s plays, dropping sections that might offend) — think "Thunder Heart." Even the best acting chops couldn’t breathe more than a glimmer of life into this tedious exercise. And for all its pretensions, we didn’t learn any more about the issues and politics of the slave trade and abolition than we can from listening to John Cullum sing "Molasses to Rum to Slaves" in "1776."

JH:I will grant you that it was over-sentimental — shots like the one of tears streaking down the noble face of former slave-turned-author Olaudah Equiano (Youssou N’Dour) hearkened back to that cheesy commercial for Keep America Beautiful. And the structure was clunky. The most interesting scenes were those of Wilberforce’s early, passionate days, when he and his best friend, William Pitt the Younger, brilliantly played by Benedict Cumberbatch, plotted their path to power. (Pitt became the youngest prime minister in British history.) But the tale was awkwardly interwoven with scenes taking place 15 years later when, his health and spirit broken, Wilberforce is introduced to the lovely young Barbara. The scenes of courtship, during which he tells her more about his political battles (i.e. exposition), are awkward, and their romantic banter falls flat. But there was much fascinating detail as well: the ways in which primitive medicine, for example, affected the course of history, as Wilberforce suffered horribly, and Pitt ultimately died young of ailments easily cured today.

FB:True, it was rich in period detail. Look, I wish I could go easier on this movie — only an android could fail to be moved by the virtue and triumph of the cause.

But I also have a rule that says any movie that ends in applause (for itself) is suspect. This was a story best left for an article in The New Yorker.

JH:There are some things a movie does better than a magazine article, and showing conflict is one. I think one of the things I enjoyed most about the movie were the scenes of sharp debate in Parliament — freewheeling, full of sarcasm and personal jibes, but also erudite and articulate. This is where the company of fine character actors — most notably, Ciaran Hinds, Toby Jones and especially Michael Gambon as Lord Charles Fox, an early convert to the cause — really shone.

Their political maneuvering was also entertaining. Wilberforce finally carries the day, not through moral suasion, but through the back door in a sneaky maneuver devised by his friend Thomas Clarkson, well played by Rufus Sewell.

FB:Yes, but the plot was as fluffed out with as much movie contrivance as historical fact.

Ultimately, that was like the whole film: an uneasy truce between Hollywood and history.

Neither one wins.

"Amazing Grace" is rated PG for thematic material involving slavery, and some mild language. It is playing at the Triplex in Great Barrington, MA.