Lincoln -- Spielberg's presidential biopic starring Daniel Day-Lewis

Finnegan said:
Watching the voting scene unravel was like watching grass grow -- I felt no tension, no build up, even in the parts where you're supposed to feel it, like when Tommy Lee Jones has to stand up there and omit part of what makes him the "radical" liberal. The scene lacked gravity because to me, the parts that would have made me care about whether or not the amendment passed were tied up in how Lincoln perceives the war on a personal level. In my mind, that means coming to terms or at the very least understanding why his oldest son wants to fight for the Union, and why his wife resents him regarding their younger son's death previously.

The movie hints that Lincoln's motives are all tied up in these personal endeavors, which would have endeared him to me as a character, but then proceeds to neglect pretty much all of them. There's no resolution or understanding between him and his family. You're kind of forced to think, based on the events in the plot, that Lincoln wants to end the war for these magnanimous and somewhat superficial American ideals -- that war is wrong, the death of American men is a tragedy, and the union is the key to America's ability to thrive. These things are all true, no doubt, but in my opinion without that personal level of context that grounds the character in a world that I can understand as the viewer, I simply just don't care.
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Everything you said is exactly why I did care. He stuck to his ideals despite every personal, selfish reason he had to abandon them. Which I think was the point. He had everything to lose as a politician and as a person. That's called dramatic stakes.
 
Wow. This didn't tell me anything I didn't already know, and I didn't find it particularly insightful into anyone's character.

Script-wise, it was "1776" without the songs. Overall, I thought it was a long, boring, extremely well-made waste of time.
 
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