What kind of man wrote The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings? What were his formative experiences? Finnish director Dome Karukoski tries to answer those questions by portraying the early life of the famed author in the new film Tolkien. (Spoilers follow.) We first encounter Tolkien (played by Nicholas Hoult) in the trenches of the Great War, searching for his friend and fellow officer, Geoffrey Bache Smith. This storyline is the thread we repeatedly return to as the film unfolds.
In flashbacks we see the younger Tolkien (a winsome, intelligent Harry Gilby) distraught at the prospect of moving from rural Warwickshire to grimy Birmingham. His father is dead, his mother ill and poor. (She was largely cut off by her family after becoming a Catholic, but the film doesn’t mention this.) “We are facing some difficult times and are fortunate to have the Church to support us,” his mother says. She dies shortly thereafter and Tolkien becomes the ward of Fr Francis Morgan, a sturdy Oratorian priest (Colm Meaney).
