The dream team is back. The director Nicholas Hytner and the writer Alan Bennett, the award-winning partnership responsible for The Lady in the Van, The History Boys and The Madness of King George, have reunited for another sensitive exploration of the national character, this one unfolding against the backdrop of the First World War.

The setting is the fictional Yorkshire mill town of Ramsden, where the remnants of a choral society are determined to stage Elgar’s celebrated oratorio The Dream of Gerontius with the aid of a new uncompromising choirmaster, Dr Guthrie (Ralph Fiennes). Freshly returned from the enemy nation Germany, Guthrie is nonetheless an avowed Teutonophile who regularly praises German art and culture and is thus the source of much transgressive mirth in the film’s first act. When Guthrie quotes Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in a small Ramsden tearoom, the local mill owner and proud patriot Bernard Duxbury (Roger Allam) growls in panic, “For God’s sake, man, lower your voice.”

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Guthrie’s affection for all things Deutsch extends to the German naval officer who appears to have been his former lover (there is a photograph) and for whom, throughout the film, he quietly pines. Fiennes carries these moments with unfussy aplomb. He is an actor who can express internal agonies with the tiniest facial flicker. When it is announced that a German battleship has been sunk, resulting in “839 Fritzes dead and floating in the North bloody Sea!” the choral society erupts with ecstatic cheers and an impromptu rendition of God Save the King. The camera, however, catches Guthrie, suddenly sickeningly aware that his paramour might be among the “dead Fritzes”.

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It’s heartening too to see Allam inhabit a finely drawn role that requires more from the venerable character actor than cardboard villainy — see his recent turn as a Tory baddie in the overrated Steve. Here his Duxbury is arrogant and bullish but also unsure and occasionally childlike, and seems the embodiment of a town, indeed a country, wrestling with bamboozled grief. “We used to ’ave such a nice goin’ on,” he sighs when contemplating the losses of wartime reality. Later we’re reminded that he too has lost a son at the front and so singing has become his salvation, a way to alleviate his anguish. “I just wish I had a better voice,” he admits, quietly racked with unspoken emotion. “I enjoy it so much.” It’s a devastating turn and challenges Fiennes for the performance of the film.

The Choral is inevitably at its best when digging about in the subterranean reality beneath a curious attempt to stage a musical work with a handful of teenage boys when their peers are being blown to pieces at the Somme and Verdun. The boys, for instance, including cheeky Ellis (Taylor Uttley) and gentle Lofty (Oliver Briscombe), are obsessed with sex, seemingly desperate to experience a life-giving act in the face of imminent death.

Sex is also on the minds of the girls, including the swaggering Bella (Emily Fairn) who auditions, scandalously, for a place in the choir by singing a bawdy music hall number, A Little of What You Fancy. Even leading citizens such as Duxbury and the photographer Joe Flytton (Mark Addy) have to schedule respective nights with the exceptionally busy town sex worker, Mrs Bishop (Lyndsey Marshal). When she eventually squeezes in a slot for Lofty she begins their session with: “I used to push your pram!”

The potency of the final act, and specifically the long Gerontius set piece, is up for debate. The oratorio is obviously not designed to bite like Defying Gravity from Wicked but it here comes close to Sunday service miserabilism (“Dear Angel, say, Why have I now no fear of meeting Him!” etc). Thankfully the skilled playing of an accomplished cast, and some astute direction from Hytner, regains the emotional high ground in time for a closing-reel sequence of some power.
★★★★☆
In cinemas from Nov 7