In addition to Firth, Andrew Scott and Benedict Cumberbatch make brief appearances as British officers. His face looks increasingly haunted with grief. When he grapples with a difficult question Blake poses, you can see his thoughts churning as he hesitates before answering. His character has the greater trajectory in the film, and MacKay comes through with a quietly astonishing performance. Despite his disillusionment, he is just as committed to their mission and protective of Blake. Schofield is quieter and has to be drawn out, reluctantly admitting that he won a medal for fighting at the Somme, a medal he doesn’t prize and no longer owns. Chapman’s rosy cheeks might have been enough to signal innocence, but the performance captures the unquestioning goodness of the character, too young to be in such danger, determined to save his older brother. In the early stretches of the journey, before the action and danger intensifies, Blake talks about home. It’s a connection that the general who chose him for the mission (Colin Firth) ruthlessly exploited. For Blake, the mission is personal because his brother is among the likely casualties if the attack goes forward. Chapman (Game of Thrones) and MacKay (Captain Fantastic) are marvels of naturalness on screen. That connection is primarily thanks to the actors, though. It enhances tension and immediacy, allowing us to feel connected to the two heroes.

The technique is dazzling, but it is more than a stunt. Filming in extremely long takes and making as few editing cuts as possible, he creates the illusion of one continuous movement as the soldiers run through trenches and across muddy fields. Mendes’ audacious strategy behind the camera has already received a great deal of attention. With phone lines down, the fate of 1,600 men rests with these two messengers. They must reach British forces at the front line before dawn with orders to call off a planned attack on the Germans, who have staged an ambush. Mendes immerses viewers in the young soldiers’ experience when they are sent on foot across no-man’s land with a message that could prevent a slaughter. Schofield (George MacKay) is not much older but seems world-weary, having already been in combat. Director Sam Mendes wisely takes the opposite approach, personalising the experience through two young British soldiers sent on a harrowing, high-stakes, night-long mission, he creates a film that is tense, exhilarating and profoundly moving.īlake (Dean-Charles Chapman) is that baby-faced soldier. Perhaps no film can capture the enormity of that war, which left around 17 million dead, and generations to grieve.

The baby-faced soldier running toward the camera in 1917 perfectly captures what was so heart-breaking and haunting about World War One – all that innocence sent into battle, all those futures destroyed.

Brothers of war 2019