Summary:
A Professor at Oxford University starts to compile a dictionary and finds enormous help from a man who has been imprisoned at a madhouse for murder.
My Thoughts:
A buddy of mine recommended me this film. He said something along the lines of: “I can’t believe this movie got terrible reviews. Watch it and tell me what you think.” I said, “Okay,” and here we are.
I’m not usually one to seek out movies that have low ratings from the vast majority of critics, but I generally enjoy Mel Gibson (“Dragged Across Concrete”) and Sean Penn (“Dead Man Walking”), and the subject of this movie piqued my interest. Being a logophile, bibiliophile, and a cinephile, I figured this movie hit all three of those -philes quite nicely, and, at worst, I would learn something about the dictionary and it’s creation.
Before I really dive into this film, I want to state right away that I don’t think this movie is bad, but it’s not particularly good either. The story it tells is interesting, but it’s bogged down with needless side plots and characters, to the point where the movie just feels like it’s plodding along endlessly through the second act. The direction is sort of lifeless throughout the movie, and it makes moments of earnestness seem far more melodramatic than they ever needed to be. The themes that were hinted at in this movie were never fully developed, and in the end, we come away feeling a bit unsatisfied with how the whole thing wraps up. That being said, I learned a lot about the Oxford dictionary, far more than I ever thought I would have, and the story beneath it all is quite fascinating, which is why, I’m sure, this was Gibson’s passion project for a number of years. He was so disappointed with the final cut that he actually filed a lawsuit back in 2017, when the film was first completed.
“For every word, in action, becomes beautiful in the light of its own meaning.”
The film starts off really well. Dr. William Chester Minor, a physician from the union army during the US Civil war flees through foggy London streets, brandishing a pistol. We’re told through voiceover (later revealed to be a deposition read by a lawyer) that Minor believes that a certain man is after him; a man that he was forced to brand as a deserter during his time in the army. This belief has driven Minor to madness, and, in one of his rages, he murders a man, thinking he is attacking him. Minor is sentenced to an asylum, where he stays for quite some time.
Meanwhile, we meet James Murray, an autodidact with no formal education beyond the age of fourteen, whom resides at Oxford University. He is tasked with compiling the dictionary, and the method in which he chooses to do this is rather interesting; he sends out a request for men and women of all ages to send in words, with their meanings and catchphrases. Using this method, he hopes to trace the etymology of every word ever conceived in the English language. The task is daunting, but nevertheless, he begins.
It takes quite a while for Minor and Murray to actually meet in this movie (probably not until about the halfway mark), and many of the scenes in between the initial call to action and their meeting are a bit arduous to get through, not because they’re terrible scenes, but because they are consistently middling scenes that give no depth of emotion to the characters or drive the story forward, and as a result, it feels like we’re stuck in a sort of purgatory, just waiting for something to happen.
There are one or two scenes that are almost laughable, which is why I dropped my rating from a 2.5/5 star to a 2/5 star rating. The most notably awkward scene comes about twenty minutes into the film, when a gate suddenly drops on an officer at the Asylum where Minor is being held, and Minor is forced to amputate the man’s leg. The scene is so poorly directed and edited that it seems implausible anyone could’ve been under the gate when it fell, and the acting by the wounded officer is intensely melodramatic.
Verdict:
As a whole, the story this movie tells is worth knowing, but the way in which this film conveys that story is rather dull. It’s up to you if you really want to see this; I wouldn’t say it’s a waste of your time, but, likewise, if you just want to know the story, you could save yourself an hour and forty minutes and just skim the Wikipedia pages about the “History of the Dictionary” and “Minor” and “Murray”.
Review Written By: