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I still don't understand why it took me this long to discover that someone made this very faithful film of Pat Barker's novel, which is one of my very favorite books.
The novel and movie are based on the actual psychiatric hospital Craiglockhart, run by William Rivers to treat WWI soldiers with shell shock. Rivers revolutionized the recognition and treatment of what we would now call PTSD, using methods we still use today like talking about the traumatic event, its meaning for you at the time, what meaning you find in it now, and examining any feelings of guilt attached to it and whether or not they're based on anything that you actually could have done.
Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owens were at Craiglockhart at the same time. I can't even think of any comparable occurrence that could happen in modern times.
The movie by necessity lacks some of the psychological depth and also some of the events of the book. (The one I most missed was Rivers' visit to one of his former patients at the end). But it has beautiful performances by Jonny Lee Miller as the brittle, spooky-pretty Billy Prior, James Wilby as a properly charismatic Sassoon, Jonathan Pryce as the compassionate Dr. Rivers, and Stuart Bunce as an awkward and very lovable Wilfred Owen.
Owen and Sassoon have a very sweet and believable relationship, one which is simultaneously between two traumatized veterans at a mental hospital and mentor and protegee writers at a writers' retreat. Owens' poems are particularly well-used; one I hadn't heard before closes the movie with a very appropriate gut-punch.
Free on Amazon Prime.
The novel and movie are based on the actual psychiatric hospital Craiglockhart, run by William Rivers to treat WWI soldiers with shell shock. Rivers revolutionized the recognition and treatment of what we would now call PTSD, using methods we still use today like talking about the traumatic event, its meaning for you at the time, what meaning you find in it now, and examining any feelings of guilt attached to it and whether or not they're based on anything that you actually could have done.
Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owens were at Craiglockhart at the same time. I can't even think of any comparable occurrence that could happen in modern times.
The movie by necessity lacks some of the psychological depth and also some of the events of the book. (The one I most missed was Rivers' visit to one of his former patients at the end). But it has beautiful performances by Jonny Lee Miller as the brittle, spooky-pretty Billy Prior, James Wilby as a properly charismatic Sassoon, Jonathan Pryce as the compassionate Dr. Rivers, and Stuart Bunce as an awkward and very lovable Wilfred Owen.
Owen and Sassoon have a very sweet and believable relationship, one which is simultaneously between two traumatized veterans at a mental hospital and mentor and protegee writers at a writers' retreat. Owens' poems are particularly well-used; one I hadn't heard before closes the movie with a very appropriate gut-punch.
Free on Amazon Prime.
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