The Choral

by Mike McGranaghan

I was not expecting The Choral to be as funny as it is. The film is technically a drama, but it’s got moments of that famously dry British wit. When you hear the premise, it sounds very serious, bordering on stuffy. The truth is quite the opposite. Briskly paced and uplifting, this latest effort from The Madness of King George director Nicholas Hytner has a big heart that makes it a pleasure to watch.

The year is 1916. World War I is in full effect. The British town of Ramsden, Yorkshire has seen a large percentage of its men sent off to war. That has taken a toll on the local Choral Society. In need of a new director to revitalize it, the leadership committee, led by businessman Mr. Duxbury (Roger Allam), makes the decision to recruit Dr. Henry Guthrie (Ralph Fiennes), a brilliant musician who controversially spent a few years working in Germany. As demanding as he is determined to keep the group going, Guthrie begins recruiting members from wherever he can. If they can sing, they’re in. That includes a pub hooligan and a local sex worker.

This approach creates conflict, both within the choir and among its leaders, the latter of whom don’t gel to Guthrie’s outside-the-box thinking. The movie has subplots pertaining to some of the individual members, like Bella (Emily Fairn), a woman who starts to fall for another guy after her soldier husband goes missing in action. A second involves Mary (Amara Okereke), a Salvation Army worker whose stunning voice catapults her to the forefront of the group.

Whether focusing on the main story or the side ones, The Choral deals with the use of music to help achieve stability during difficult times. Everybody is hurting because of the war. Keeping the Choral Society going serves several purposes, the biggest of which is letting people sublimate their anguish into something positive. Alan Bennett’s screenplay mixes comedy and drama to illustrate how working together on this common artistic goal aids in improving the town’s morale. If you’ve ever leaned on music to get you through a rough period, you’ll relate to the story’s emotional core.

Ralph Fiennes makes an exceptional choice here: he underplays Guthrie. The temptation must have been there to portray him as a larger-than-life figure. Instead, the actor gives him a contemplative quality. The conductor exudes intensity not because he’s bombastic but because his complete devotion to music is evident in every fiber of his being. Fiennes has delivered a series of fascinating, divergent performances in the past five years (The Menu, Conclave, 28 Years Later) and this is another jewel in his crown.

The Choral contains a weird, overly comical sequence wherein the group pleads with a temperamental composer to let them revise his composition, and Mary’s arc feels a little incomplete. The Choral is otherwise a sincere, moving film whose parting image provides the exact right note of melancholy to put the plot’s themes in perspective.

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