BENEDICTION – July 14, 7:30 PM @ Cinestudio

When decorated officer Sassoon pens anti-war poems from the trenches, his society connections save him from the humiliation of a court martial. Instead, he is sent to ‘recuperate’ in a hospital dedicated to those suffering the traumas of conflict. It’s there that he meets the love of his life, poet Wilfred Owen, and embarks on a period of rapturous and productive creativity. Owen returns to active service and is killed. Sassoon suffers a profound guilt that never leaves him. Davies’ film beautifully captures the scale of a whole life, shifting between young Sassoon (brilliantly played by Jack Lowden) and the poet in later life (a hawkish Peter Capaldi), after he has converted to Catholicism. Although he was caught up in the hedonistic, high-society world of the 1920s – where Davies’ acerbic wit comes to the fore – becoming the lover of both matinee idol Ivor Novello and artist Stephen Tennant, Sassoon always felt a sense of profound loss throughout his adult life, misguidedly seeking comfort in religion and marriage. Davies’ film captures these events with grace and plangent beauty. (written by BFI’s Brian Robinson)

Beautifully designed and photographed, sensitively written and directed by England’s acclaimed Terence Davies, and impeccably acted by a distinguished cast that turns life into art, Benediction is one gorgeous motion picture. – Rex Reed, Observer

Director: Terence Davies, 2022, UK, 137min, PG-13

Cast: Peter Capaldi, Jack Lowden, Julian Sands, Gemma Jones, Ben Daniels, Geraldine James