The Choral

It is 1916, two years into WWI and the first year Britain began conscripting all young men at the age of eighteen. Ramsden, Yorkshire’s Choral Society has lost most of its membership to the army and more threaten to leave after Dr. Henry Guthrie (Ralph Fiennes), who has spent years working in Germany, is hired as the new conductor of “The Choral.”

Laura's Review: B

Director Nicholas Hytner and his “The Madness of King George” and “The Lady in the Van” screenwriting partner Alan Bennett team up for their fourth collaboration about community and the power of music to bring people together despite the issues that might keep them apart. The film begins as 17 year-old telegram boy Lofty (newcomer Oliver Briscombe) delivers yet another piece of bad news from the King to a woman who his girl crazy friend Ellis (Taylor Utley) advises may have been ripe for the picking, grief being a powerful aphrodisiac. Ellis will go on to court Bella (Emily Fairn, “Saturday Night”), a young woman whose love is missing in action and presumed dead, but who will surprise both the village and the choral society when he reappears, minus an arm, and is convinced to take the lead.

After the upset over Guthrie’s association with Britain’s enemy has died down (not to mention whispers about his sexuality), the man gets to work assessing the town’s talent, upsetting long held assumptions. He also ditches their planned performance of Bach’s ‘The St. Matthew Passion’ for Elgar’s much more ambitious ‘The Dream of Gerontius,’ which causes another dust-up with Reverend Woodhead (Ron Cook) because it is based on a poem by a Catholic Cardinal. Then Guthrie improvises, the piece, usually performed with up to 200 singers and a full orchestra, now cut down dramatically, musicianship supplied by the local hotel’s string trio and the town’s Salvation Army band. The conductor also adds relevancy by changing the old man whose soul is journeying to Paradise to a young soldier, Bella’s former beau Clyde (Jacob Dudman, “The A List”), and turns its angel into the man’s nurse, cast with the Salvation Army’s Mary Lockwood (Amara Okereke). Alderman Bernard Duxbury (Roger Allam, “The Queen”), owner of the local mill, the town’s main employer, and chair of the Society who expected to play the lead, accepts that his love of singing isn’t equal to his talent and graciously steps into the role of the Devil.

During rehearsals, a mention of purgatory will again set off the Reverend, who declares it does not exist only to be silenced by Clyde, who expounds on his experiences in No Man’s Land. While the rebuilding of the choral and adaptation of Elgar’s work provides the movie’s main throughline, Bennett paints a picture of a town worn down by two years of war while facing losing more of its youth. In addition to the triangle formed by Bella, Clyde and Ellis, another young man, Mitch (Shaun Thomas, “How to Have Sex”), pines for Mary. All three young men will be called up and turn to Clyde for guidance, who backtracks with reassurances to keep their heads down. The group’s final challenge will be a visit from Elgar (Simon Russell Beale, “Benediction”) himself. The man objects to Guthrie’s changes, call the whole thing dreadful, storming off without granting permission for the choral to perform it, but a downcast, defeated Guthrie will be buoyed by the society that had once rejected him, more determined than ever to fulfill his vision.

Hytner keeps all of Bennett’s various offshoots flowing into a whole, his cast, comprised of veterans and first timers alike, a fully meshed ensemble. (The cast also includes “Braveheart’s” Alun Armstrong as undertaker Mr. Trickett and “Warhorse’s” Robert Emms as gay conscientious objector Robert Horner.) Production designer Peter Francis created the fictious mill town of Ramsden in the World Heritage site of Saltaire, which, like this film’s setting, was created by a Victorian mill owner. Cinematographer Mike Eley (“The Dig”) captures the townspeople in a natural style as they go about their days, at one point rehearsing together on the street, while also adding majesty to the performance space, Gunther incorporating not only the stage, but the hall’s balcony. Music arranger George Fenton does the fictional Gunther’s work adapting Elgar’s oratorio.

The film ends with a one-two punch. Although we’ve seen the performance in piece, when we see what Gunther has put together it is undeniably moving, a lament for a soldier who’s lost his life. Then reality sets in as photographer Mr. Fyton (“The Full Monty’s” Mark Addy) takes the new recruits’ pictures in uniform and local prostitute Mrs. Bishop (Lyndsey Marshal) helps one experience lovemaking before the town turns out at the railway station where former celebratory sendoffs featuring the town’s mayor and a band have been abandoned.

“The Choral” is an old fashioned movie with a message relevant to today about how the arts help us come together during trying times.

Robin's Review: B+

It is 1916 in Yorkshire, England and most young men are conscripted into the Army or dead. The local choral society is forced to recruit teenagers and old people to their ranks. They are forced, by the war, hire a new choral master, Dr, Henry Guthrie (Ralph Fiennes), who has to take extreme measures to put on a show for the town with “The Choral.”

Nicholas Hytner directs this an old-fashioned and well-done telling of a different time and place that is now, fortunately, a thing of our distant past – I hope. In the town of Ramsden, the best and the brightest of the young men have been drafted and many have died in the horrors of the war. Even the choral’s former choirmaster felt the patriotic need and joined the army, despite his age.

His decision has serious ramifications for the choral group, which is struggling to rebuild after losing so many young men to the war. The community decides to hire Dr. Guthrie, despite having worked in Germany, and they begin the preparations to create a new performance. The selection of what to perform becomes a topic of debate since most good choral music is by German composers. Finally, after much heated debate, it is decided to use Edward Elgar’s “The Dream of Gerontius” – by a solid ENGLISH composer.
Then, there is the whole audition process with an extended montage of the selection of singers. As expected, the talent is varied and Guthrie must hear off-key or flat voices and choose among them. Then, in comes Mary (Amara Okereke), a young woman whose voice is a pleasant revelation for the good doctor.

From here, we see the trials and tribulations of “putting on a show” as we watch the work progress and refine. Mary even takes it on herself to invite Elgar to a rehearsal of the coming performance – he is not far away receiving an award. But, modifications to the presentation of “Gerontius” and Guthrie’s “reinterpretation” of the piece – necessary because of the war – are considered a travesty by the composer. He refuses to sanction the performance.

But, since the film IS titled “The Choral,” the show must go on, with a bit of creative thinking and subterfuge. The getting to the big performance is the real meat of the story as many of the characters are given dimension and purpose with Fiennes first among equals. The performance of Elgar’s work, though, was a bit of a letdown after the careful building of the story by Alan Bennett. Maybe they should have stuck with Bach.

Sony Pictures Classics released "The Choral" in select theaters on 12/25/2025, expanding in subsequent weeks.