'Benediction' Scores Another Critical Win For British Writer/Director Terence Davies

Benediction, a true story of poet Siegfried Sassoon, shows the kinship that acclaimed director Terence Davies always makes in any of his films. His first two films, the masterpieces Distant Voices, Still Lives (1988) and The Long Day Closes (1992), were both blatantly autobiographical, and it is abundantly apparent that Davies might have followed in Sassoon's footsteps had he lived during World War I. Here is everything you need to know about this great movie!

Best known as a poet who found historical acclaim for writing about the true terrors of the war, Siegfried Sassoon experienced much less glory in his life than his poems. After a difficult adult life, Sassoon ends up far from where one would expect, given his psychiatric hospital stays and numerous affairs with other men.

• Jack Lowden / Peter Capaldi - Siegfried Sassoon

• Simon Russell Beale - Robbie Ross

• Jeremy Irvine - Ivor Novello

• Calam Lynch - Stephen Tennant

• Tom Blyth - Glen Byam Shaw

• Kate Phillips / Gemma Jones - Hester Gatty

There's no doubt that Benediction is not for everyone. It's a difficult meditation on the same types of themes that Davies has always explored. Now, he's thinking about his art from an older age, just like Sassoon, as both led an understandingly tumultuous life as a gay man in the England. The outcome for Sassoon is bleak, so certainly, Davies hopes for something different for himself, as he's certain to show how Sassoon turned into such a bitter man. With his character performed excellently by both Jack Lowden and Peter Capaldi, Benediction works as a cinematic historical drama and a character piece work investing in.

Rating: 8/10

★★★★★★★★☆☆