That was an excellent one.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

While this film is not for everyone, I was totally captivated by it. Perhaps because I'm quite familiar with Lincoln's biography and have been to the Lincoln Boyhood National Memorial in Indiana where Lincoln spent his boyhood years in an impossibly tiny cabin (by today's standards), the depiction of several years of that hardscrabble Indiana boyhood in this film were absorbing. True, as some critics have pointed out, there's no "narrative structure", i.e., developed storyline, to this film, but to me its progression of largely unrelated, and primarily non-verbal, vignettes nicely captured the physical, social, and emotional milieu in which the young Lincoln grew up. It's a remarkable story, and a tribute to both the (relatively) class-ness nature of mid-19th century America and Lincoln's own sturdy moral character and remarkable intellect, that "The Great Emancipator" and the "Savior of the Union" could emerge from such an impoverished environment. It's good to recall that Lincoln only received 9 months of formal schooling in his entire childhood.And yet early on, as we see in this film, his mother recognized his intellect (see my heading above) and strives to find a schoolhouse for him without much enthusiasm from Lincoln's father who needs him for the relentless physical chores of their farm. We see Lincoln reading or thinking out in the fields and then his father admonishes him to get back to work. Truth be told, Lincoln did not like physical work and always wanted to work with his mind, and unfortunately disparaged his hard-working father for his lack of ambition. But we see the occasional moments of father-son bonding in the film, although some residual discord remained (years later when Lincoln was a successful railroad lawyer, he refrained from going to his father's funeral). The real sources of strength and encouragement for Lincoln were his mother, and most importantly, his stepmother, and we see that reflected in the various vignettes of this film.The film is narrated by Lincoln's older cousin, who sometimes can be hard to follow in his backwoods dialect, and young Lincoln doesn't speak until the film is half-way over. Primarily, visual imagery depicts Lincoln's childhood milieu, and the cinematography is the most gorgeous I can recall from a black and white film. To round out the sensual experience and the emotional effect, the director has selected some beautiful pieces of music, e.g., Copeland, Dvorak, to accompany the enthralling visual imagery. For my money, 10 stars!

The love Abraham Lincoln has for his mother and his step mother is ever-present throughout this film and stands at the forefront of his struggle in childhood. The opening quote of the movie is "All that I am, or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother." This is very apparent for the rest of the film; his struggle living in Indiana and dealing with the death of his mother whom he very much loved. This movie is extremely dreamlike and poetic, however, its effectiveness as a full length film seems unnecessary. This film is a unique artistic look at Abraham's childhood and his relationships with important women in his life, but its obvious low-budget nature and minimalistic dialogue calls for a disappointment to all Lincoln fans. The film is set over a three-year period starting from when his family moves from Kentucky to Indiana. There is a philosophical nature to the movie that seems more relevant to the artistic audience than to the historical accuracy of the time. The movie is a visual work of art and for fans of Lincoln's biography and life, it is merely that. It is not to say that The Better Angels is not a beautifully clever visual to an artistic crowd wanting a glimpse into Lincoln's life, it just does not have the substance most Lincoln fans look for. The black and white film does a lot to give the feeling of the time of Abraham Lincoln's childhood and misfortunes, but does not provide complete accuracy and overview on Lincoln. Even though it wonderfully shows his father's hatred of his scholarly endeavors and his mother's influence, the minimalism of its dialogue prevents a full understanding of the historical context surrounding the time. His childhood is what drove his entire career and the inspiring political changes he enacted and these inspirations stemmed from his definite sense of education and his relationships with women.

What is so immediately intoxicating about this film is the cinematography. From the first frame you are pulled into the experience as viscerally as moving image can manage. Albeit this is not, per se, immediate. The film actually begins with an extended introduction to the score or, more specifically, the leitmotif that will accompany you throughout much of the trajectory. This brings me to the main idea: this piece is ahistorical in many ways. Rather than a score befitting the time period, you make your acquaintance with a modern sounding slightly more minimal arc of sounds which speak more to the mood of the film than to anything aimed at a period drama. A fortiori, the decision to begin the film with this extended immersion into music—a medium beautifully unconstrained by the more limited potential of physical form is a titillating foreshadowing of what the director is after here. This movie intends to touch only on themes that span the course of human history (and perhaps transcend it entirely given the religious connotations often present (similar to The Tree of Life in that regard)) through the presentation of mood, love, loss, family, discipline, isolation, friendship, freedom etc. What makes this so successful is not the scope alone. Any film can be ambitious and fall flat but this endeavor found it's successful portrayal of the universal through specific attention to the particular (much as poetry does (and much as The Tree of Life did)). There is great attention to detail in this film and all of the powerful themes conveyed here are tightly woven into the fabric of a very historically particular life and time. This is what is so magical about The Better Angels. It is ambitiously universal in everything it intends to convey and it does so through a radical focus on the absolutely particular. This is a film about Abraham Lincoln's childhood and that is what you see... But!– You never even hear his name. To an outsider, uninitiated into American Culture and History, it would be the same experience. The detail is so zoomed in that only the most fundamental elements of the life and character portrayed here can be seen. The details that one speaks of in a history class are nowhere to be found. This film pulls you to two opposite ends of an essential spectrum of human knowledge. On one end: abstraction to the universal and on the other: absolute particularity. It is the way that the former permeates the latter that makes this film an exceptional work of cinema. Roger Ebert correctly daubed it: "a genuine American art film", and it is indeed that and yet more. This more, on it's own, however is insufficient. Being a genuine American film alone is insufficient. Combining the two such that the universal emerges from the details and routines of an American woodland childhood is what strikes gold. The message and medium chosen were paired together exquisitely and make for an immersive experience of cinematic poetry and thematic meditation. The Better Angels is indeed utterly American, and yet wholly universal all at once. I hope this enhances your experiences of it.Thanks. -DMp.s. I wrote this in an inspired frenzy so please excuse any potential iPhone typos and read my roving ramblings charitably. Cheers! p.p.s. It's quite beautiful that this is a film which defies typical cinematic structure so thoroughly that I am at a loss for how one could even potentially construct a description capable of containing spoilers. I don't think it can be done.

I just saw this film about Abraham Lincoln's childhood in the harsh wilderness of Indiana and the hardships that shaped him, the tragedy that marked him forever and the two women who guided him to immortality off Amazon Prime. Only one word to describe this...mesmerizing... I read a user comment that said this was better than the disappointing Spielberg "Lincoln" from a few years ago, which quite honestly, after watching this film, I had forgotten about. But after reading that comment, I really think these are two good companion pieces to each other. I forget the director/writer's name, but this film has producer Terrence Malick's fingerprints all over it. It doesn't tell a story so much, as it gives you an experience- makes you feel like you are right there with the characters. This method allows you to get to know them in a more intimate way than the usual film storytelling. Diane Kruger, Jason Clarke (who especially is good as Lincoln's father) and Wes Bentley co-star.Please check out all my reviews, plus lots of good interaction and group discussion about anything/everything movies/TV/entertainment at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/movie.holiks/Email us at:[email protected] don't settle for second best!- lots of copy-cat and imitation groups out there, but "the REAL movie-holiks" is THEE original one!