“IN A HOLE IN THE GROUND, THERE LIVED A HOBBIT”

“IN A HOLE IN THE GROUND, THERE LIVED A HOBBIT”

Movie review: Tolkien

By Clare Walker

Holy Trinity In-House Writer

“In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit.” So begins J.R.R. Tolkien’s masterpiece of heroic fantasy, The Hobbit, first published in 1937 and continuing with the epic story of the Ring of Power in The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Was Professor Tolkien referring in some way to himself? Perhaps. As a soldier serving in the British army during World War I, he spent a lot of time underground in the trenches, and it is well-known that his experiences in the Battle of the Somme inspired some of the bleakly iconic settings of Middle-Earth: the Dead Marshes and Mordor, especially. And his early childhood in the English countryside no doubt inspired The Shire, the idyllic homeland of the hobbits.

These inspirations of Tolkien’s imagination are amply and beautifully depicted in the 2019 biopic Tolkien, directed by Dome Karukoski and starring Nicholas Hoult and Lily Collins.

The film begins with the Tolkien family in England, shortly before young Ronald (as J.R.R. is called) and his brother lose their mother to diabetes. Under the watchful guardianship of a priest who had been a close family friend, the Tolkien boys grow up in the home of a kindly woman who takes in orphans. There, Ronald meets Edith Bratt, with whom he becomes romantically attached, and in school he meets fellow students with whom he becomes close friends. His romance with Edith, his career as a student at Oxford University, and his “fellowship” with his pals from school all come to a screeching halt with the onset of the Great War, and young Tolkien’s creative, romantic soul is stretched to the breaking point.

In my opinion, the filmmakers made a major creative misstep: it seemed like they couldn’t decide what story they were trying to tell. Is Tolkien a coming-of-age story? Is it a buddy movie? Is it a romance? The answer is that it tries to be all three and triply misses the mark. Tolkien’s military career was not very exciting: he became so ill with “trench fever” that he had to be sent home. By contrast, his early life as an orphan and his on-again off-again relationship with Edith are the stuff that Dickensian melodramas and heart-string tugging romances are made of. This is what I think the filmmakers should have concentrated on.

I was also disappointed but not surprised by the dismissive and subtly negative treatment of Tolkien’s devout Catholic faith.

Still, as a huge devotee of all things Tolkien, I really enjoyed the movie. It was fun to catch glimpses of Middle-earth in sketches tacked to his bedroom wall and see his imagination come to life through clever animation, especially in the battlefield scenes.

The film’s niche appeal and sub-optimal creative choices led to its disappointing and brief theatrical run this past summer, but it has recently been released on DVD and would make a great addition to any fan’s video library.

Link to the DVD: https://amzn.to/2ZvI7vM

About the Author

Clare T. Walker, a Holy Trinity Parishioner since 2003, writes for the National Catholic Register (www.ncregister.com). She is also an independent fiction author. Here are some handy links to her website and her books:

Clare T. Walker
www.claretwalker.com

author of The Keys of Death - a veterinary medical thriller
amazon | b&n nook | b&n paperback | Kobo

author of Startling Figures - 3 stories of the paranormal
amazon | b&nook | b&n paperback

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