Steven Spielberg makes the fight over abolition absorbing by taking the bargaining seriously, with Daniel Day-Lewis persuasive even at rest. The reverence sometimes gets heavy, but the political detail earns the attention it demands.
Steven Spielberg makes an absorbing political drama out of the effort to pass the 13th Amendment and abolish slavery. Tony Kushner’s screenplay stays with the bargaining, including the dubious methods used to bring reluctant men round. The question is how a president gets enough people to agree, for their own imperfect reasons, to do something necessary. At 150 minutes, Lincoln asks for sustained attention to that work, and mostly rewards it.
Daniel Day-Lewis gives Abraham Lincoln enough oddness to stop the intelligence becoming bland. The physical awkwardness, weariness and taste for a story make him enjoyable company, while the flashes of anger prevent us from mistaking patience for passivity. We laughed at his storytelling because he makes the pleasure of keeping other people listening so evident. Even the digressions feel useful: this is a man finding out what his listeners will tolerate, and quietly deciding when to press them.
Tony Kushner gives the bargaining the concentration often reserved for a pursuit or a siege. A conversation matters because support can be gained, weakened or lost within it, and the dialogue keeps those possibilities active. The ethical shortcuts are allowed to remain awkward, even when the objective is one we share. That is the film’s most persuasive quality: it makes room for admiration without pretending that decent intentions relieve anyone of the need to negotiate.
The supporting cast supplies welcome friction, with Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stevens especially good at making conviction feel difficult to live alongside. There is pleasure in having so many capable actors working around the central performance. Still, some are given too little space to become more than a pointed contribution to the debate. The film occasionally seems content to let a familiar face supply the human detail that the writing has not provided.
Janusz Kamiński’s cinematography makes the interiors handsome, sometimes to the point of distraction. Rick Carter’s production design gives the rooms substance, though the care lavished on them can encourage us to study the furnishings instead of listening. Michael Kahn’s editing keeps the exchanges clear without pretending that every conversation needs to race. John Williams’s music is less helpful when it insists on the dignity of an occasion already carried by the actors.
The more serious limitation follows from the narrow focus. Enslaved people’s lives receive less attention than the arguments of the politicians deciding their future, and the film leaves too much of that experience outside its account. We understand the choice: a legislative drama needs to stay close to the legislators. Even so, the moments of sentiment feel less earned when the people with the most at stake remain so far from the centre.
Historical dramas can become dutiful when everyone on screen seems aware of being remembered. Here, the actors have votes to secure and difficult colleagues to persuade, and the humour provides a welcome break from the respect. Give it an evening when following the negotiations will feel like a pleasure rather than another job.
