A Scientist at the Movies Reviews by Greg Paris

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Title: Amazing Grace

Date Viewed: 2/24/07

Details:

Ioan Gruffudd (William Wilberforce)

Nicholas Farrell (Henry Thornton)

Rufus Sewell (Thomas Clarkson)

Youssou N'Dour (Oloudaqh Equiano)

Ciarán Hinds (Lord Tarleton)

Nicholas Day (William Dolben)

Romola Garai (Barbara Wilberforce)

Albert Finney (John Newton)

Michael Gambon (Lord Charles Fox)

Director: Michael Apted

Score: +1/2

The Review: Historically-based costume drama with mostly unknown actors, outlining the progression towards the elimination of the English slave trade in the late 1700's and early 1800's. Essentially a fictionalized biography focusing on the education and rise of William Wilberforce (Gruffudd) to Prime Minister, and of his companions in the cause of freedom. The Byzantine legal approach which finally served to crack open the opposition is rather curious, and worth waiting for: bone up on your Latin.

Time-structure may be a bit confusing to some, but it seemed to work for me. It basically starts out in the middle, and uses flashbacks to fill in the details of the past, while gradually moving the "contemporary" point of view forward, in parallel -- so that by the time the middle has become the pivot point, all the background has been explained. If you tumble to this structure early, it becomes facile.

It's curious that the more well-known actors are relegated to (or chose?) smaller supportive roles. Finney is crusty as an ex-slave trader transformed into a churchman; Sewell is the firebrand minister who anchors Wilberforce's conversion to the cause and serves as the nineteenth-century version of Father Drinan.

It has the spirit and sensibilities of an uplifting, come-out-of-it smiling, film.

(24-Mar-07)

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