Terence Davies does not attempt to re-create the putrid trenches of the Western Front in his new film about the war poet Siegfried Sassoon. Best remembered as mentor to Wilfred Owen, he was awarded the Military Cross for "conspicuous bravery" — shortly before he chose to boldly denounce the war as unconscionable in 1917.
Despite the explosive symphonies of mud and blood that propel films like 1917 or Dunkirk – and you may recognise the latter's Jack Lowden as the youthful Sassoon here, while ex-Doctor Who Peter Capaldi plays the poet in his autumnal years – writer-director Davies is of the belief that no re-creation, however grand the budget, can purport to get close to the awful quiddity of war.
