Sam Mendes makes a gripping war thriller, though the camera movement sometimes holds our attention more firmly than the soldiers do. George MacKay gives us someone to worry about.
1917 is a good war thriller whose most persuasive idea also causes problems: the camera appears to stay with its soldiers for the whole journey. Sam Mendes wants us to experience the effort of getting across the battlefront, with no reassuring cut to somewhere else. The apparent continuity makes waiting uncomfortable and movement exhausting. We recommend it for that sustained pressure, although we wish the soldiers had been given more to say for themselves.
George MacKay, as Lance Corporal Schofield, gives Mendes the human presence the method needs. There is a watchfulness to his performance that makes the continued movement feel like work, and he holds our attention without appearing to ask for it. Dean-Charles Chapman’s Lance Corporal Blake supplies a more open emotional response, helping to keep the central pairing from becoming merely a way of moving the camera. Their performances make the thin characterisation easier to forgive.
Roger Deakins makes the camera’s proximity count: it follows the men closely enough that moving forward never looks easy. We found ourselves holding our breath because the shot would not give us the relief of looking elsewhere. That is an effective use of the long-take approach, and it explains why the film can be gripping with so little plot. Occasionally, though, we start watching the camera’s progress as intently as the men’s, wondering how the next movement has been arranged.
That movement depends on Dennis Gassner’s production design, which makes the battlefront feel like a place the actors must negotiate. The spaces have to hold up to prolonged attention, and they do; we get a useful sense of the ground the men must cover. Lee Smith’s editing preserves the impression of continuity without constantly advertising where the joins might be. His work is essential to the suspense, even if the insistence on an apparently uninterrupted shot eventually becomes distracting.
The screenplay, by Mendes and Krysty Wilson-Cairns, is less consistently convincing. Its urgency keeps us engaged, but some encounters feel placed at convenient intervals to provide a fresh shock or a brief dose of feeling. The recognisable supporting cast can add to that sense of arrangement: Colin Firth as General Erinmore and Andrew Scott as Lieutenant Leslie bring authority, but also the small interruption of recognising an actor. Both performances work, though we sometimes notice the casting when we should be watching the soldiers.
Thomas Newman’s score helps sustain the strain, but it sometimes presses harder than the images need. We are already alert to danger; extra musical insistence can make the suspense feel managed. The war-thriller tradition allows for this narrow view of combat, and Mendes makes a strong case for sticking close to ordinary soldiers. Even so, the script needs more detail about them to make the quieter passages as absorbing. Give it your evening if war thrillers are your sort of film, and put the telephone away.
