Tolkien

I am a huge nerd fan of The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R. Tolkien!  I read all of the books multiple times as a teenager and I stood in line for hours to see all of the movies (back in the day before assigned seating) on opening weekend.  My main motivation for traveling to New Zealand was to see where the movies were filmed!  Needless to say, I've been looking forward to seeing Tolkien, which portrays J.R.R. Tolkien's formative years and how he came to write his classic books, and I finally had the opportunity last night.  John Ronald Reuel Tolkien is played as a boy by Harry Gilby and as an adult by Nicholas Hoult.  His early childhood with an imaginative mother (Laura Donnelly), his later childhood as an orphan in impecunious circumstances, his love for fellow orphan Edith Bratt (Lily Collins), his "fellowship" with Geoffrey Bache Smith (Anthony Boyle), Robert Q. Gilson (Patrick Gibson), and Christopher Wiseman (Tom Glynn-Carney) at school, his study of philology with Professor Joseph Wright (Derek Jacobi) at Oxford, and his experiences on the Western Front in World War I eventually inform his stories of Middle-earth.  I thoroughly enjoyed watching this movie!  As a fan of the books, I took great delight in finding the beginnings of specific characters, places, and events.  I especially liked the scene where Edith introduces him to Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle, a major influence on him.  The movie is incredibly beautiful to look at with stunning cinematography and I really loved the atmospheric music composed by Thomas Newman, particularly "Vinatta" which is simply magical.  Many may find this movie to be a bit tedious and cerebral (there are long discussions about the purpose of art and the origins of languages) but I really loved it and I anticipate that I will eventually own it.

Note:  Nicholas Hoult also played J.D. Salinger, another one of my favorite authors, in Rebel in the Rye.