Director: A.J. Edwards

Starring: Jason Clarke, Diane Kruger, Brit Marling & Braydon Denney

Running Time: 95 mins

Release date: 14 Nov, 2014 in Toronto

Worldwide Gross: N/A

 

 

 

 

Basic Plot:

 

Narrated by the displaced voice of his cousin, The Better Angels is the story of the childhood of Abraham Lincoln as his life unfolds deep in the harsh woods of 1817 Indiana. Here, he and his family endure a young American landscape, a severe land defined by toil and hardship. Abe’s exceptionality rubs up against his domineering father, yet his angelic mothers nurture his curiosity for knowledge and truth. This contemplative rumination shows the tragic yet hopeful childhood of Abe Lincoln, as an American immortality begins to take shape.

 

Clock Watching? (7 of 20)

 

Every life and story is built upon those who came before. Abraham Lincoln’s is set upon the columns of his family, especially upon the lives of his angelic mothers. The voice that conceived this film is A.J. Edwards, a new American filmmaker riding upon the wings of the cinematic brilliance of Terrence Malick, who produced the movie. With this relationship having birthed the film, accompanied by a starkly beautiful black and white cinematography and rural early-American setting, I just knew The Better Angels would entrance me. Could this be the dawning of a new Malick, Elisha come to don the mantle of Elijah?

 

Unfortunately, something derivative this way staggers. Where Edwards beautifully apes Malick’s style, he lacks the deft touch to weave together the universal tales which best befits the master’s style. This film dies by the sword of its most interesting aspect: the story of Lincoln’s childhood.

 

Every spoken word and filmed image is geared toward lifting the young Abe Lincoln up as a human of a different breed – a concoction of myth and divinity, assuming his to-be saintliness in every frame. Where it should’ve embedded itself into the actual story being presented, The Better Angels’ roots have taken hold in the Lincoln to come, ever-leaning toward his legacy. In reaching for profundity, the film is left grasping in the wind.

                                                                                          

Oscar Performances? (10 of 20)

 

The camera’s constantly fluid movement and quick editing doesn’t allow enough space within the film for the characters to breathe. It plays like an indifferent spirit where if there is ever a moment an actor begins to steep in her character, the lens is quickly batted and on to the next attractive, profound image.

 

Despite the camera’s pilfering, Jason Clarke, Brit Marling, and Diane Kruger are still quite good. As the patriarchal figure, Clarke demands attention as he injects enough fear, disillusionment, and heartache into each scene. As the two angelic mothers (Abe’s first dies from poisoning early on and his father remarries) nurturing Abe’s greatness, Marling and Kruger are only given mere seconds at a time to deliver a line or convey expression. They are simply figures of purity and grace, cut away from once any nuance is shown.

 

The real conundrum is the way young Abe is scripted and portrayed. He barely utters a word in the film, and for all the “exceptional child” talk, there was nothing that hooked me into his story. He is more a mama’s boy cipher to which life happens, his myth pushing and pulling him this way and that, forgetting him in the wake.

 

Lights, Camera, Direction? (10 of 20)

 

A.J. Edwards’s camera certainly sweeps, swoops, and circles like Malick’s, and like the master’s, each image in the film could be framed and hung upon any gallery wall in America. A learned technical prowess is on display here. Black and white cinematography renders landscapes unfamiliar and distant, a land of old where myths were shaped. And there are shots which literally took my breath away: a horrific montage of jump cuts lit by flashes from a lantern as a woman grieves, a mixture of light and dust emanating through a window like a recently-departed spirit, and many stirring shots of trees reaching unwieldy into the sky.

 

But there is an unfortunate dissonance between form and content here. Despite the film’s beauty, Edwards creates only Malickian shadows of wonder and experience, as the visual-textual story he has woven is ultimately revealed as quite fragile. Every image is insecurely tied to the film’s obstinate reliance upon the myth of Lincoln. Overtly reverent images of the Lincoln memorial open The Better Angels, which are meant to serve as the main point of reference for navigating its fluid, dream-like narrative. The film’s images end up smothered by their appropriation to its story. What was beautiful comes off as disingenuous. What was profound comes off as boisterous. And what was subtle comes off as pandering.

 

Tell a Friend? (5 of 20) 

 

Skip this one and go straight to the master himself. Too many people haven’t seen The Tree of Life (2011).

 

Again? (6 of 20)

 

Because it’s a beautiful film and I respect Malick’s heritage, I do want to give it another try despite my initial reaction. Though, I may turn off the sound.

 

Total: 38%

 

Despite a spellbindingly beautiful aesthetic, A.J. Edwards’s The Better Angels plays as misguided memorial, a failed attempt to originate a myth already well made. 

 

by Colin Stacy