Logline: At the civil war continues to rage, America's president struggles with continuing carnage on the battlefield as he fights with many inside his own cabinet on the decision to emancipate the slaves.
Writer: Tony Kushner
I'm not a big fan of politics or biographies. I also find it important that I have not watched the film for Lincoln, I have only read the screenplay. This review will focus solely on the words I found on the page.
I think it goes without saying that the aspiring screenwriter trying to break into the industry will find it difficult to do that with a historical biography. The history of how this film came about started in 1999. While having a conversation with Steven Spielberg on an unrelated project, Doris Kearns Goodwin mentioned that she had plans to write a book about Lincoln (Team of Rivals). After hearing her description of the project Spielberg immediately wanted the rights to make the film. More than a few writers had a crack at the script before Kushner's draft. My point being that this wasn't a spec. Spielberg had a bug up ass to do a Lincoln project.
Synopsis:
Lincoln focuses on his efforts to pass the 13th Amendment. At this time the civil war is nearing an end. He pursued this modification to the constitution out of his concern that the Emancipation Proclamation would be discarded when slave states returned to the union.
Analysis:
I tend to judge screenplays on how well they entertain me and on what they make me feel. This script falls short when measured by these standards. However, the subject matter is relevant given today's political climate. While politicians bicker and grandstand about our issues, there still isn't anything that compares to the problems that Lincoln faced with the Civil War. That makes a film like this an important reminder to what America has been through as a nation.
Writing this script must have taken an incredible amount of research for historical accuracy. I will also add that it took a fair amount of research for myself to fully grasp what was happening in the script. I found myself on several occasions stopping to look things up on the internet so I knew what was going on in the script. To the writer's credit, everything in the script appeared to be historically accurate.
With the exception of Lincoln himself, I wasn't entirely impressed with the characterization on the page. It's plain to see why Daniel Day Lewis would want to take on this role, it clearly would present a huge challenge for an actor and certainly his participation elevated the film. But overall, it frequently felt like characters were blending into one another.
Overall, while I did not personally enjoy this script very much, I can appreciate the work that was put into creating it and the film that follows is certainly a worthwhile venture.
Rating:
Premise - 6.00
Character - 7.00
Dialog - 7.00
Story - 6.00
Overall - 6.50
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