Starring Nicholas Hoult, Lily Collins, Colm Meaney, Derek Jacobi

Directed by Dome Kurokoski

Fox Searchlight, out now

Scholar J R R Tolkien lies fever-stricken in the trenches of the Somme in World War I, reflecting on his life and the influences that have shaped him.

In many ways, Finnish director Dome Kurokoski’s biopic of the man who wrote a The Lord of the Rings plays out exactly as you’d imagine – all idyllic villages, location shooting in the City of Spires, cameo from Derek Jacobi – but then it does something that takes it from being a Sunday night BBC drama and gives it not only soul but a cinematic scale.

Nicholas Hoult (Max Max: Fury Road) plays Tolkien from older teenager onwards, and it stops at the point he starts writing The Hobbit, meaning that we don’t get the writing of The Lord of the Rings, World War II and trips to the Miramar Hotel in Bournemouth. But that’s fine, as the movie is more about the linguist finding his voice as a writer, fighting against snobbery as well as the Germans on the battlefield. Hoult is very good, as is Lily Collins (Mirror Mirror) as future Mrs Tolkien, Edith Bratt, a spirited young lady who helps him rail against the impositions of formal society.

The use of the battlefield wraparound structure sees Tolkien in a fever dream, which allows us to see visualisations of dragon fire (enemy flamethrowers), ethereal spirits (poison gas) and other fanciful fantasy creations. Instead of suggesting that the war gave him the ideas, it was here that the already formed imagery broke free in front of him. Only occasionally are the references too obvious – one character criticises Wagner’s Ring Cycle for taking six hours to tell the story of a magic ring! – while the realisation of his home village is very Shires, and their new home in industrial Birmingham is Mordor in spirit.

Star Trek’s Colm Meaney provides strong support as Tolkien’s priest guardian, and the already-mentioned Derek Jacobi role is a key one in the transformation of the writer’s fortunes. The war scenes are, quite rightly, horrific, and the piles of dead bodies reinforce the strong message of the futility of conflict as the country’s bright young things are mowed down as cannon fodder.

Verdict: Not the hagiography it might have been, this biography presents Tolkien as a decent fellow caught up in the most horrific of events. As with so many, he returned from the Front a very different man, and became the writer of some of the beloved and accomplished fantasy work ever. 8/10

Nick Joy