Amazing Grace (2007)
Review by Zachary K. Parker
Nearly anyone can easily recognize the oft-sung hymn, Amazing Grace, and thus the filmmakers use the song’s familiarity to structure parts of the film, to make it coherent on the whole. The film focuses on the persistence of William Wilberforce in pursuing the abolition of slavery, providing a historically meaningful and beautiful setting for the song.
The song may have been written by the blind slave-trader-converted-minister John Newton, played convincingly by Albert Finney with an attitude as challenging as his wig is messy, but the film only pays homage to its creator insofar as the protagonist, William Wilberforce, received inspiration and advice from him.
Wilberforce, before he had met
Ioan Gruffudd plays Wilberforce with a sincere intensity, similar to his previous role as the third lieutenant Horatio Hornblower in the TV series, representing his troubled mind, torn between the cruelty of slavery, the injustice in the world, and hints of his opium addiction, which contributes to his constant illness.
In fact, the film begins and steadily shows the strain of his illness on his life. On the other hand, it’s through his illness that he opens up and reveals the intimate details of his life through flashback to Barbara Spooner (his future wife played by an enthusiastic and consistently buxom Romola Garai).
The film documents the history of his struggle over the years with the abolition of slavery through Parliament, facing the stubborn resistance of his opponents, Sir Banastra Tarleton, played wonderfully by Ciaran Hinds.
Wilberforce’s humanistic endeavors,
claimed by the filmmakers to be motivated by God and His influence on
Wilberforce’s Christian life, eventually win out in Parliament, as Wilberforce
and company trick Parliament to pass a bill destroying the possibility for
slave trade in the
Screenwriter Steven Knight has the tendency towards a rather sentimentalist view of his stories and characters, dwelling on their triumphs over evil based on their good-willed intentions. In this way, Wilberforce is somewhat unbelievable, but at least he’s heart-warming, right?
Moreover, Knight’s sentimentalist tendencies were balanced with director Stephen Frears’ pessimism in Dirty Pretty Things, a modern day mystery concerning slave trade, and then almost abolished by director David Cronenberg in Eastern Promises, a tremendous, but brutal depiction of the Russian mafia and its indecency to fellow humans.
However, in Amazing Grace, Knight’s over-the-top schmaltze inflicts the film more than the illness of its protagonist under the direction of Michael Apted, whose previous work includes the distasteful Enough, starring Jennifer Lopez.
On a more disturbing note, the film claims to be inspired by a true story, but the true story would inspire a much darker vision of William Wilberforce and his involvement in politics, especially considering his actual lack of persistence in pursuing the abolition of slavery.
Furthermore, if you research (heck, even “Google”) Wilberforce and racism, you will find a plethora of books and articles showing him to be a spiritual, as well as political chameleon, who viewed Africans as “sub-human” and took up the credit for leading the campaign for the abolition of slavery for political and economic reasons. Actual historical research shows that Wilberforce was as much a hero or savior as Charles Manson was a humanist.
On the film’s own strength, after a few years, you might not recognize the film for anything other than a heart-warming, maybe tear-jerking, period piece. Do not let the maske of “Amazing Grace” and its pleasing tune of supposed “Christian” sympathy and good-willed humanism triumph over your skepticism.
Research Wilberforce. God knows it’s an important turning point in history and the issues are just as significant, but pull out your library card before the box of Kleenexes.