I love how seriously everyone in this film takes music.
The Choral, directed by Nicholas Hytner, is the story of a community in 1916 England working to put on a choral in the middle of a war that is taking its young men – and singers – away. Ralph Fiennes plays Dr. Guthrie, the new chorus master who goes looking for new voices in unlikely places.
The word that came to me when I was watching this film was ‘sweet’, and I think that comes mainly from the youth and innocence of the majority of its characters. The boys who join the choral are just about to be old enough to be drafted into the war, and hold rose coloured ideas of what serving must be like, and the girls join them in making do in their world as it is, navigating jobs, faith, friendships, young love, and of course, the music. Older characters in the film have a more realistic view of the world, having lost something or someone to the war, so much so that the choral becomes a way to get through life, or a place of healing.
Ralph Fiennes is excellent in everything, and Dr. Guthrie brings a strict yet warm presence for the others, putting everything into the choral.
The film maintains a theatrical quality to it, not just in the show the characters put on, but even in the way their interactions are shot, which may also be why ‘sweet’ kept coming to mind. It is not quite a full musical in the way that we know, but it is reminiscent for me of nostalgic films like The Sound of Music in the way that it looks. In fact, it is also similar to The Sound of Music in that both films keep us in this bubble of joy even as the sad reality of war looms over them.
The Choral is funny, and fun, and… sweet. On track to be a family movie night classic, I think.
The Choral is now playing at TIFF ’25. For more information, click here.
