Haddenham Screen

THE CHORAL (12)

153 mins

Director:  Nicholas Hytner

Starring:  Ralph Fiennes, Roger Allum, Mark Addy, Alun Armstrong, Simon Russell Beale, Amara Okereke

Synopsis:

1916. As war rages on the Western Front, the Choral Society in Ramsden, Yorkshire has lost most of its men to the army. The Choral's ambitious committee, determined to press ahead, decides to recruit local young males to swell their ranks. They must also engage a new chorus master, and despite their suspicions that he has something to hide, their best bet seems to be Dr. Henry Guthrie -- driven, uncompromising, and recently returned from a career in Germany. As conscription papers start to arrive, the whole community discovers that the best response to the chaos that is laying waste to their lives is to make music together.

Awards:  

Reviews:

"A quiet and consistent pleasure: an unsentimental but deeply felt drama which subcontracts actual passion to the music of Elgar and leaves us with a heartbeat of wit, poignancy and common sense."    ****   GUARDIAN

"The Choral is inevitably at its best when digging about in the subterranean reality beneath a curious attempt to stage a musical work with a handful of teenage boys."    ****   TIMES

"This quietly plangent, drily comic piece about a choirmaster staging an Elgar oratorio in a Yorkshire mill town superficially resembles one of those Blair-era underdog comedies that were all period-accurate pluck and regional accents..."    ****   DAILY TELEGRAPH

"Nicholas Hytner, directing his fourth Bennett-written film, lays on a dusty, beige period look — and his soberly muted dynamics altogether take the edge off the script. The Choral is perfectly tuned, but it never soars."    ***   FINANCIAL TIMES