It took about three minutes to realise what director Sam Mendes was trying to pull off. That infamous one-shot experience. It’s a tough challenge – for every Rope and Mr. Robot, there are a multitude of movies where this approach comes off as laboured and clumsy. But not here. Within the next three minutes, he had won me over. It’s clear that his long background in directing for the stage, combined with his knowledge and experience working on film, has made him the perfect person to bring us into such an experience.
The shots are edited together seamlessly, and the performances of the two leads George MacKay and Dean Charles-Chapman as Lance Corporals Schofield and Blake hold up throughout those long takes. Both must be given credit, but MacKay is especially one to watch. He covers with ease the complex contradictions of a soldier in war – the exhaustion and yearning for an escape mixed with the determination to stand ground and complete the task at hand: a race against time and across a lot of ground to stop a planned push-forward of troops at the frontline that will end terribly.
The soundtrack and the continuous feel of the movie combine to make for a bubbling pot of tension that still manages to find a way to surprise you with it does boil over into climactic moments. As you fall through this hellish and often isolating landscape, there are a few surprises through the film that really do leave their mark in your head. One of these is a moment where the race against time becomes almost literal. It hits you in such an unflinchingly emotional way that rather escapes wording.
And in the quieter, less disruptive points of the film the horror, the bloodshed, and the stakes melt back just enough for us to take in the simple and yet gigantic toll of the war. MacKay’s character is battered and bruised both physically and mentally through the ordeal. He faces substantial loss during the film. And yet, he is just one of many who faced such things.
All those involved manage to balance great stakes and great introspection. Early on, there is a light sprinkling of humour amongst proceedings to help ease the audience in. Even when it is laughter in the face of horror from broken men. Something which comes across well in Schofield – his bantering with Blake as they proceed across no man’s land is tinged with worry for his brother on the frontline. And unlike quite a few war films, it does not linger on its own achievements. For every technically impressive feat, the movie brings, it also is sure to keep the audience in check with another harrowing sight or surprising set piece.
Your heart is with Schofield and Blake all of the way, hoping for the best, but as is said in the third act by Benedict Cumberbatch (one of many big stars with their own parts to play in the boys’ tale), hope is a dangerous thing. Though no movie could ever quite cover the magnitude of impact that the First World War had, this movie does the best job that could be done. It tears away as much of the wall between the characters and us as it can and shows one day in the life of two boys who have lost their innocence far too soon and must fight through hell on Earth.
