It’s almost impossible not to be won over by an actor like the great Ralph Fiennes. Just recently, he’s shown that he can bring gentle gravitas to a film about cardinals fighting over the future of their church just as he does a post-apocalyptic zombie movie that ends up becoming a moving meditation on death itself. He can be wearied yet witty, both melancholic and mischievous, all with a critical change in tone or expression drawing you in. Unfortunately, the meandering historical drama “The Choral” manages to do the impossible and almost entirely squander all of his talents as an actor. Despite gesturing towards big questions surrounding life, death and music, it’s a stiff, oddly lifeless film where even its beautiful singing manages to fall flat.
This is not the fault of Fiennes. Indeed, there are moments where you can almost forgive the lackluster film surrounding him when he gets a moment to take center stage. The trouble is that the longer “The Choral” attempts to hold a note without him, the more you realize how hollow a work this is. It’s a film that’s about World War I, a choir attempting to carry on despite it all and the looming specter of death that will consume an entire generation. The film is oddly nervous about being too serious, undercutting itself with one-note humor that buries its most promising emotional through lines.
Directed by Nicholas Hytner (“The Madness of King George”) with little depth to any of the visuals from a shallow script by his previous collaborator Alan Bennett, it ostensibly centers on the British choir director Dr. Guthrie (Fiennes) who is brought on to assemble a team for a production of Edward Elgar’s “The Dream of Gerontius.” The challenge is that many of those who were previously involved have been called to serve, leaving the choir without the voices necessary to perform. Thus, Guthrie, who is often viewed with scrutiny by some in the community as he spent time pursuing music in Germany, brings in those who might otherwise be overlooked.
The entire cast surrounding Fiennes is also underserved. We get brief slivers of information about each new character’s respective backstory, only for the film to flit onto the next thing, never once letting us sit with anything for too long.
One could perhaps understand this if Guthrie were to become the focal point and ultimately require greater time in the narrative, though even he gets lost in the maudlin machinations of the film. We get some insight into how he is fearful about losing someone close to him and, seemingly at one point, may have indeed had his worst fears realized. Except the film never sees this through or seems interested in sitting with this potential grief for more than a few scattered moments. The film moves on with so little thought or care given back to what seems like a critical element, that it almost feels as though something has been removed that was supposed to be there.
By the time it all draws to a halting close, all the ways that “The Choral” strained to be an inspiring, inoffensively feel-good dramedy of sorts prove to be its undoing. What should be a moving portrait of community coming together through music as the horrors of the world loom just out of frame is painted with such a broad brush that you never feel any of the impact. Despite all the darkness that lingers, the film is neat to the point of being insubstantial and without anything meaningful to grab hold of. It keeps its audience at such a perpetual distance that, when it attempts to draw you in close for a final shot that feels close to confronting something more, it’s too late for both the movie and the characters to leave a mark before both are whisked away.
“The Choral” opens in theaters this Christmas.