Today we generally accept that the end of the Civil War would naturally involve the end of slavery but, as the film documents, it wasn't always certain. President Lincoln (Daniel Day-Lewis) want's to pass a constitutional amendment outlawing slavery but faces an uphill slog. His own party isn't enthusiastic about it, and the opposing Democrats are dead set against it. But Lincoln knows that without the amendment all those endless battles would mean nothing.
On paper, the prospect of a two and half hour period film about the complications of passing legislation sounds dull as paste, but it's those colossally high stakes and the lengths that is Lincoln willing to go to that help make the film compelling. In order to get any Democratic support, he must essentially start handing out bribes. If that weren't enough of a potential scandal, Lincoln knows that if the South surrenders before the vote, it will guarantee the amendments failure and so he must find a way to delay the end of the war.
Spielberg delivers all these complex plot points with the help of a very sharp script by Tony Kushner (who won the Pulitzer for Angels in America), partially based on Doris Kearns Goodwin's book Team of Rivals, which delivers line after line of crackling dialogue. Many of the best lines are spoken by Tommy Lee Jones as Republican firebrand Thaddeus Stevens who has some of the best flippant putdowns this side of The Social Network.
Ironically if there's anyone who gets a pass it's Lincoln himself. Day-Lewis is as amazing as we expect him to be, but the film keeps the character at a distance. Apart from a passionate argument with his wife (Sally Field who's every bit as good as Day-Lewis) and a series of affable, home-spun ramblings, there's precious little insight into Lincoln the person. It's strange that showing us his thought-process and the anxiety consuming him doesn't translate into a more complete portrait of the man. This would be less of a problem if the film weren't called Lincoln. This is a film more about the moment that defined his legacy than it is about the man himself.
On the one hand, Spielberg's reluctance to deconstruct Lincoln too much is understandable, the man is the closest thing America has to a bona fide Christ figure. But there is something that just doesn't gel about watching the man talk about all the moral compromises he's had to make, order bribes, suspend habeas corpus, etc, and then slowly put on that famous hat and walk into a beam of light as John Williams's score swells. It's not that the film causes one to lose respect for the man, on the contrary, it's obvious how righteous his goals are, it's just that the film's iconography is simper than the its depiction of the man.
To call Lincoln a bio-pic is a bit disingenuous as it denotes a greater level of introspection then we get here. But what Spielberg has given us instead is equally valuable – an accurate, historical procedural documenting one of the most important moments in American history. It may try too hard for those Oscar moments at times, but on the whole the craftsmanship is strong and delivers a very entertaining film about what could have been a very dry subject.
Grade: B+
