Benediction

Terence Davies has a made a career of providing a sympathetic but not sentimental voice to suffering, loss, and regret. “Benediction” is an often devastating meditation on what is often called survivor’s guilt. The story of wartime poet Siegfried Sassoon isn’t exactly a biopic but rather a close, painful examination of what it means to find salvation in the world, whether it’s on a hellish battlefield, within the clinical confines of a sanatorium, or negotiating the cynicism of cafe society. The direction is flawless, every performance cannot be improved upon, and the love of the spoken and written is infused within every scene. “Benediction” operates at a skill level that makes every other contemporary film look amateurish.

So we’ll done. An indie, it probably won’t get much promo, but it certainly deserves it. Love, love this movie.