Netflix Pick: Lincoln

So we finally got around to seeing Lincoln. And I can't even believe I took this long considering how much I lurve all that is Daniel Day-Lewis. (And FYI, his wife's name is Rebecca which makes me wonder if he calls her Becky and if so, I need to, at some point in time, hear him saying "Becky" just so I can store it in my memory bank and replay it at will. Not unlike the very quick moment in Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason when Colin Firth says "who is it, Becky?" when coming to the door and I immediately melted into a puddle on the dirty theater floor. But I digress. I digressed quite a bit there.....)

So anyhow, this movie. It wasn't bad, but I didn't really love it. I guess the story of Abe Lincoln has been told so many times that this one had to go the way of telling one particular part of his story, i.e. how he fought hard for the abolition of slavery. And that is a good story, but I thought it was a little too long, a little too boring and spoke nothing of the civil rights movement of its time which really was the impetus to dissolving slavery.

I did really like the opening scene in which the various soldiers could recite his words back to him. He really was a beloved President both then and now. And throughout the movie, I liked how he was portrayed as being such a story-teller and such a clever lawyer. In many ways, he was too smart to be President. Why waste such a mind to wrangling with legislators?

But Daniel was great and so was Sally Field. The cast was full of stars, but my favorite to see was James Spader.

A good flick if you want to get your history on, but not the best historical drama ever. Sorry, Daniel....

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