Usually, on Friday nights, my family and I often watch a movie and have popcorn. Sometimes we watch a holiday movie depending on the season or a family-friendly movie since I have a younger brother. This year, with my brother approaching the mature age of twelve, we settled on the movie “1917”, a British war film directed by Sam Mendes. The film is rated R for war violence and language. It stars George MacKay and Dean-Charles Chapman who play the characters William Schofield and Thomas Blake. The film takes place in 1917 during World War One in northern France. The two main characters are sent on a mission to deliver a message to the Devons, a British military division group, to call off an offensive attack against the German army that is predicted to go wrong.

I expected another well-done war movie, such as Nolan’s success with “Dunkirk”, and “1917” was exactly what I predicted with more surprises I could have thought of. Here is my review and thoughts of the 2019 film that left me gasping, covering my eyes, and tears burning in my eyes.

The following contains MAJOR spoilers to “1917”. 

The plot was very straight forward. In the beginning of the film, the two characters are told of their mission and where they have to go. The characters follow this mission (besides poor Tom after the halfway mark in the movie) with a few problems along the way. You can’t have a war movie without any problems or unexpected issues. This is war; nothing goes the way you think it will or want it to go.

One of the first things I noticed, as well as any moviegoer, about “1917” was the fact the movie seemed to be filmed in one long shot. We followed the characters everywhere without any breaks or shifting in the camera movement. My brother stated during the film it was almost like we were watching a video game in the third person. We always stayed with the characters and it just added a surreal feeling to the film. I honestly have never seen anything like this in the film world before. Director Mendes stated he did this type of shot in order to add a continuous movement to the film and this type of film shot would add more of a connected feeling to the setting, plot, and characters.

This led to an incredible setting. With this continuous motion of the camera, we were able to see more of the surroundings and the setting the story was taking place in. When the two main characters, Tom and William, crossed No-Man’s-Land, the camera gave us a wider angle of what was surrounding our characters. We saw the trenches, the potholes, the barbed wire, the dead bodies, and mud. We saw everything in high definition and the detail put into the setting was incredible (what also helped was maybe due to the fact my family got a new TV recently and we now have the HD option).

One of the most memorable scenes from the movies was the scene where the character William is running through the torn town of  Ecoust-Saint-Mein at dawn. Flares are constantly being sent up by the enemy in order to see in the dark. The film goes from pitch dark to a blinding white light. German soldiers are shooting at William as he runs for his life and it’s just such an anxious scene. Will he get shot? Will he be captured? Will he die? The music adds more intensity to the scene. With each step William takes, the orchestra conducts sounds similar to a hearting beating and a sort of rumbling sound that adds more meaning to how dangerous this scene is and what is at stake. The composer of the score is Thomas Newman, who conducted “Finding Nemo” and “WALL-E”. Such a big change for him from going from composing children’s movies to movies about the brutality of war and loss.

For our characters, I immediately liked Tom because he was soft and had a good heart. He wanted the war to end and was determined to take on the mission in order to not only save the Devons but also save his brother who is a lieutenant in the division. His confidence and determination made him an enjoyable character. William on the other hand was a bit rougher and more of a realist of the war. During one scene, Tom boasted about the idea of the two receiving medals after completing the task at hand and William shows little to no interest in this idea. Tom asks why and William states the medal is nothing but a piece of tin and string and it won’t change the war. The two were opposites in actions as well as personalities. I liked how they both bounced off each other in scary situations and supported each other in even the toughest times.

One of the most touching and emotional scenes between the two characters was about forty minutes into the movie when Tom dies after being stabbed by a German pilot. The scene was very unexpected because the movie gave off that Tom was the main character since his main goal was to save his brother. It was an emotional scene as William kept on reassuring Tom that he was not dying and that they had to go and see the medic. As Tom dies in William’s arms, Tom makes him promise to complete the mission and write to Tom’s mother. William says yes, I will. Movie death scenes don’t get me nor do sad movies (besides “Schindler’s List”), but during this scene, I felt an ache in my chest. Tom was such a happy character and he died so suddenly. He had such a determined, optimistic mindset about the war and the mission and he died not knowing if his brother would be saved or if the war would ever end. When Tom accepted the mission, he didn’t know what he was walking into and it ended up taking his own life.

One of the strange side plots that occurred was when William broke into a house to hide from German soldiers and meets a French woman. William had been suffering from a head injury beforehand and the French woman works on his wounds. William discovers the French woman has a child with her which is not hers. The two characters talk and William gives her all his food. The scene is insignificant to the main plot and is just random. I guess the writers were trying to establish that civilians were also affected by the war. The French woman has no contribution to the main story besides allowing William to rest in her torn down house.

The movie, overall, was excellent. It was intense, heartbreaking, jaw-dropping, and just wow. “1917” will go down as one of my top ten favorite war movies of all time.