Beanbioca
As Good As It Gets
Spoonatects
Am i the only one who thinks........Average?
Zandra
The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.
zinkmariarose
The love Abraham Lincoln has for his mother and his step mother is ever-present throughout this film and stands at the forefront of his struggle in childhood. The opening quote of the movie is "All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother." This is very apparent for the rest of the film; his struggle living in Indiana and dealing with the death of his mother whom he very much loved. This movie is extremely dreamlike and poetic, however, its effectiveness as a full length film seems unnecessary. This film is a unique artistic look at Abraham's childhood and his relationships with important women in his life, but its obvious low-budget nature and minimalistic dialogue calls for a disappointment to all Lincoln fans. The film is set over a three-year period starting from when his family moves from Kentucky to Indiana. There is a philosophical nature to the movie that seems more relevant to the artistic audience than to the historical accuracy of the time. The movie is a visual work of art and for fans of Lincoln's biography and life, it is merely that. It is not to say that The Better Angels is not a beautifully clever visual to an artistic crowd wanting a glimpse into Lincoln's life, it just does not have the substance most Lincoln fans look for. The black and white film does a lot to give the feeling of the time of Abraham Lincoln's childhood and misfortunes, but does not provide complete accuracy and overview on Lincoln. Even though it wonderfully shows his father's hatred of his scholarly endeavors and his mother's influence, the minimalism of its dialogue prevents a full understanding of the historical context surrounding the time. His childhood is what drove his entire career and the inspiring political changes he enacted and these inspirations stemmed from his definite sense of education and his relationships with women.
Kelsey Wade
The Better Angels is a one of kind film, in that it is about Abraham Lincoln's very early life. The film covers three very formative years for Lincoln. From my previous knowledge I think that this film is very accurate and the information is directly from Lincoln's cousin so I would say the facts are accurate. Also, I think the film accurately depicts the time period with the activities that they are doing in the film, the look of the house, and wilderness around them. This film is the only film on Lincoln that really shows a big part of his childhood in detail. Braydon Denney did an excellent job of playing Abraham Lincoln. He got his shy but playful personality down perfectly. I enjoyed the film as a whole because of the cinematography. All of the shots in this film were very beautiful and the use of nature throughout really caught my attention. But, there wasn't much dialog throughout the movie and because of this, I felt like I got a lot of the idea of the movie just from the trailer. Also, the film moved pretty slowly because it didn't have many big events throughout it, just little details. In The Better Angels, there are many little events and details that show Abraham Lincoln's personality and what impacted him to be the man he became. Throughout the entire film Lincoln's backwoodsman feel is shown through the way he lived and the tough times for him in the film. Compared to other films I have seen on Lincoln, I think this film portrayed Lincoln's close relationships with his mother and stepmother the best. They really tried to capture Lincoln's pain when his mother died in this film and I think they did a great job of it. It was very interesting to see Abraham in a church as a young child because I have not seen this in any other films that included Lincoln. It was very interesting to see how honest he was throughout the film. The film even touched on Lincoln's background in wrestling. In my opinion, the most powerful part of the film was when Lincoln is watching the slaves walk by attached to chains. I also loved how much it showed his mother and stepmother believing in him and his abilities. Abraham Lincoln as shown in this film, had many people who thought he was amazing and knew he was capable of great things at a young age. His stepmother knew he needed schooling and once he started, even his teacher believed in his abilities. Overall, The Better Angels really showed little events that shaped Lincoln into the man he became and gave the viewer a good understanding of how Abraham Lincoln's childhood was.
lukekpat
The Better Angels begins with a quote from Abraham Lincoln: "All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my Angel mother." Terrance Malick film veteran (editor), A.J. Edwards, directs a film that is not as much about the aforementioned historical figure as much as it is about childhood. Though the film follows the well-known biographical beats of Lincoln's youth—his father's adherence to labor over studies, his mother's death by milk sick, his experience with wrestling, his close relationship to his stepmother—the film never takes on an aggressively Lincolnesque aura. Except for when it does. There are some points when Miller's film seems as if it aims to be subtle, focusing more on small details of rural American life and only hinting at a connection to Lincoln. The film begins with glimpses into the Lincoln Memorial, but never shows the president's statue. Scenes of Lincoln reading with his birth-mother, Nancy (played by Brit Marling) show early hints of a gentle nature in the boy; she places a mantis on his hand and he lets it crawl along him. The effect that Tom Lincoln (played by Wes Bentley) has on his son's life is more of an imposing authority than a father; his head is often cut out of frame as he looms over Lincoln, who is played by Jason Clarke. It is also shown that Tom regularly whips his son (like a slave), a situation that Abe has come accustomed to. This is done to the horror of Abe's stepmother, Sarah (played by Diane Kruger). This is a quality that could be applied to many children of the time, and does not need to be exclusive to Lincoln. The film is extremely meditative, filled with lengthy sequences of atmospheric shots of the woods with little to no dialogue. So, the lack of tie-in to Lincoln's biography may seem appropriate. However, the film seems to get caught in a twilight zone. Some scenes are far from subtle, most notably a scene when the young Abe witnesses a group of slaves being lead in chains. In addition to the fact that it is recorded that Lincoln did not come to witness the horrors of slavery until later in his life, the scene shifts the tone of the film from hinting at Abraham Lincoln's relationships with others to flat out spelling out to the audience: 'this is why Abraham Lincoln did not like slavery.' What also sticks out in this film is its lack of substance. Though it focuses on the relationships that shaped Lincoln from a youth, there is not much emphasis on the impact that these events have on Lincoln. The beautiful black-and-white visuals lose their merit for the most part since little is shown to have much of an impression (save for a scene in which milk sick is given a palpable, albeit strobe-light filled effect). Another odd choice is the aggressively choppy editing. That being said, the cinematography and framing work is enticing; the camera moves almost like a ghost through these childhood memories. That is what this film is: a series of memories. However, without enough substance to bring the characters to life or tell a historical story about Lincoln, and with too much history to be a meditative look at childhood, the film, in my opinion, falls apart. There is a lot of promise in Edwards' directing to be seen here, but a later film may use these tactics more effectively.
danielmizzlemoss
What is so immediately intoxicating about this film is the cinematography. From the first frame you are pulled into the experience as viscerally as moving image can manage. Albeit this is not, per se, immediate. The film actually begins with an extended introduction to the score or, more specifically, the leitmotif that will accompany you throughout much of the trajectory. This brings me to the main idea: this piece is ahistorical in many ways. Rather than a score befitting the time period, you make your acquaintance with a modern sounding slightly more minimal arc of sounds which speak more to the mood of the film than to anything aimed at a period drama. A fortiori, the decision to begin the film with this extended immersion into music—a medium beautifully unconstrained by the more limited potential of physical form is a titillating foreshadowing of what the director is after here. This movie intends to touch only on themes that span the course of human history (and perhaps transcend it entirely given the religious connotations often present (similar to The Tree of Life in that regard)) through the presentation of mood, love, loss, family, discipline, isolation, friendship, freedom etc. What makes this so successful is not the scope alone. Any film can be ambitious and fall flat but this endeavor found it's successful portrayal of the universal through specific attention to the particular (much as poetry does (and much as The Tree of Life did)). There is great attention to detail in this film and all of the powerful themes conveyed here are tightly woven into the fabric of a very historically particular life and time. This is what is so magical about The Better Angels. It is ambitiously universal in everything it intends to convey and it does so through a radical focus on the absolutely particular. This is a film about Abraham Lincoln's childhood and that is what you see... But!– You never even hear his name. To an outsider, uninitiated into American Culture and History, it would be the same experience. The detail is so zoomed in that only the most fundamental elements of the life and character portrayed here can be seen. The details that one speaks of in a history class are nowhere to be found. This film pulls you to two opposite ends of an essential spectrum of human knowledge. On one end: abstraction to the universal and on the other: absolute particularity. It is the way that the former permeates the latter that makes this film an exceptional work of cinema. Roger Ebert correctly daubed it: "a genuine American art film", and it is indeed that and yet more. This more, on it's own, however is insufficient. Being a genuine American film alone is insufficient. Combining the two such that the universal emerges from the details and routines of an American woodland childhood is what strikes gold. The message and medium chosen were paired together exquisitely and make for an immersive experience of cinematic poetry and thematic meditation. The Better Angels is indeed utterly American, and yet wholly universal all at once. I hope this enhances your experiences of it.Thanks. -DMp.s. I wrote this in an inspired frenzy so please excuse any potential iPhone typos and read my roving ramblings charitably. Cheers! p.p.s. It's quite beautiful that this is a film which defies typical cinematic structure so thoroughly that I am at a loss for how one could even potentially construct a description capable of containing spoilers. I don't think it can be done.
