His mother called him “Ronald.” Dunno why she liked that one the best of his three first names, but whatchagonnado? I imagine a young John Ronald Reuel Tolkien getting pissed off about having to soot the filth pit and mouthing off to mom in Elvish or Dorkish or whatever other language he made up that week.
J.R.R.’s childhood was tragic. His family was left impoverished after having overspent on the extra name for their eldest child; single mom tried to hold it all together, but from what I gather in watching Tolkien, she worked an entire afternoon non-stop once and immediately died from tea deprivation syndrome. The Tolkien boys were, fittingly, moved about a foster family gameboard from that point on.
In retrospect, I find it funny how much JeRR (Harry Gilby young, Nicholas Hoult not-so-young) wasn’t into his brother. You’d think the guy would cling to his one remaining family member, but that didn’t seem to be the case. Teen Tolkien instead formed a Dead Poet’s Society with the kid whose parents owned Flourish & Blotts and fell in love with, essentially, his foster sister Edith (Lily Collins); his brother Hilary Arthur Reuel Tolkien (we spent good money on these names and you are going to use them, young men!) is nowhere to be seen for most of the film. Maybe he got stepped on by an ent.
The film is told in two different timelines. In the coming-of-age reflection, we see JeRR’s somewhat unbelievable memory – nobody likes Chaucer that much – and his transformation from orphan to whatever the Brit equivalent of “Good Ol’ Boy” is. In the real time interplay, JeRR is a curiously orders-free British officer in the trenches of WWI France searching for one of his grade-school fellowship. At his side is a loyal-to-a-fault private by the name of … any guesses? … “Sam.” Yes, the seeds of his future Lord of the Rings are replete throughout this bio, which makes me wonder what epic would emerge from my brain if I turned every formative moment of my pre-30s into a high fantasy metaphor. “Lord of the Frogs?” Never mind.
It is hard to say whether Nicholas Hoult makes a good J.R.R. Tolkien; after all, we know so much more about his work than his persona. I have no doubt that this film is –more-or-less—a faithful biography to the events if not the actual person. I mean, seriously, are you gonna tell me somebody as good looking as Nicholas Hoult felt the need to invent Elvish? Now that’s high fantasy. Those things much-more-often-than-not come out of people who get bullied … the About a Boy Nicholas Hoult, not the Jack the Giant Slayer Nicholas Hoult. What strikes me most here is not the Dead Poet’s Society feel, nor the constant allusions to the Middle Earth that became JeRR’s life, but instead how close we came to never having the Lord of the Rings. Tolkien could easily have died in The Great War. In turn, this makes me wonder how many great novels, inventions, innovations, and human achievements have been forever unfulfilled because war sucks. With my thoughts on what wasn’t there instead of what was, I can’t say this was a brilliant biopic, but it should satisfy JeRRy’s kids.
♪Tolkien
You make us convene
You make everything … nerdy
Tolkien, I think my elf can fly
But I wanna know for sure
C’mon and roll that (20-sided) die
(I need an 18 or higher) ♫
Rated PG-13, 112 Minutes
Director: Dome Karukoski
Writer: David Gleeson, Stephen Beresford
Genre: Spot the inspiration!
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Anyone who has read The Silmarillion
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Anyone who started the The Silmarillion and said, “for the love of the Sackville-Bagginses, what is this mess?!” Seriously, if you’re not into Lord of the Rings, odds are very unlikely you’ll be into the bio of its creator.
♪ Parody Inspired by “Wild Thing”
