The Choral Opens Nationally

Dr. Henry Guthrie is not exactly Mr. Holland. As bandleaders go, he is not the nurturing type. Maybe it was all the time he spent in Germany. Of course, that made his return to England rather awkward after WWI broke out. Still, he knows music, so he is the most qualified candidate to lead a smalltown Yorkshire choir. Yet, even Guthrie’s keen musical mind struggles with the challenges of retention and repertoire, thanks to wartime complications in Nicholas Hytner’s The Choral, which opens nationally this Friday (having already opened in New York).

Much to the frustration of Alderman Bernard Duxbury, the director of the Ramsden Choir just enlisted out of patriotic fervor. Duxbury happens to be the choir’s featured tenor, not coincidentally because he foots the bills. There are not a lot of able-bodied men with any kind of musical knowledge left. Guthrie happens to be one of them. Despite his initial protests, Gutherie reluctantly accepts—and immediately starts trimming the deadwood that had been grandfathered into the choir. That does not yet include Duxbury, because there aren’t any better options.

The community seems rather mixed on Gutherie, judging from the note wrapped around the brick that crashed through the choir’s window. Like it or not, Guthrie is the director, so he and Duxbury hope anglicizing their repertoire will satisfy the malcontents. That means cutting Bach (and also Mozart and Beethoven), in favor of the very British (and very demanding) Sir Edward Elgar.

Maybe The Choral could lead to a fresh wave of popularity for Elgar’s compositions, but this seems unlikely. His progressive sacred music basically has something to put off just about every end of the contemporary listening spectrum. However, the way Gutherie’s working-class choral embraces Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius is quite uplifting. (It sort of brings to mind the manner in which patrons of the Louisville Orchestra rallied around contemporary classical music in the mid-20^th Century.)

Nevertheless, The Choral is quite predictable in many respects. Alan Benett’s screenplay often appears to be repurposing elements scavenged from Brassed Off. Of course, they will stage their concert—no matter what opposition they might face.

What sets the film apart happens outside of the rehearsal hall. Hytner quite poignantly depicts the devastating impact of the war on the naïve Ramsden community. Arguably, if The Choral had been more of a snapshot-like portrait of the village, as their collective optimism turns to grief, much in the Terence Davies tradition, it would have resonated far more deeply.

Frankly, Ralph Fiennes stays in a safe lane as Gutherie. In contrast, Roger Allam greatly humanizes Duxbury, the well-heeled mill owner, even before the film reveals he is the equivalent of a Gold Star father. Yet, the performance that truly elevates and defines The Choral is that of Jacob Dudman, as Clyde, a former choir-member returning from the front, after the amputation of his dominant arm.

The Choral is a finely accomplished period production, featuring some truly impressive arrangements and orchestrations of Elgar. Unfortunately, the central character is largely aggregated from familiar cliches. Not really awards caliber, The Choral is worth streaming eventually for its sensitive recreation of the WWI home front. As of now, it is still playing in New York at the Village East and opens more widely this Friday (1/16).