LINCOLN -- a pygmy review:

I am not a cynical person. I resist it, even when it is perhaps sorely called for. I will, all things being equal, always choose to fall on the side of idealism. If I must err, let it always be in the company of hope and optimism. They are far sturdier companions -- while basking in the light or fumbling witless in the dark. And so, when presented with a film like "Lincoln," a film with many faults, I cannot allow myself to be caught up in valid trivialities when the work, imperfect though it may be, is nonetheless crammed with the stuff of distinction and significance.

It is said that a watched pot never boils. "Lincoln," too often, feels like a watched pot. The viewer senses almost every one of its 149 minutes. It is a slow burn. And yet, based on the torturous slog that is the events in question, perhaps that is not altogether unfitting. Like many, I found myself put off by its lack of character development, its stilted and anachronistic speech that hobbled from too many of its characters' mouths, and its early and vast swaths of scenes rendered as if from the sort of school play all parents attend out of duty but not desire. And yet, around an hour into the film, I abruptly realized I had turned a corner -- I was engrossed and the material was suddenly compelling. Early indiscretions were nearly forgotten. A story of righteous victory, snatched from the jaws of injustice by hook and by crook, "Lincoln" is propaganda to be sure -- made with historical rigor, but more than a little of the agitpropistic excesses that Emmanuel Leutze, and other great artists who have tried to capture the American sacred, would doubtless recognize. It is, perhaps, impossible to depict an icon without such embellishments, even an icon as poignantly, humanly and even drolly depicted as this. The film might well have been better if it didn't take itself as seriously as it took its subject. And yet, despite that -- despite the fact that it did not end even as Thalia and Melpomene begged just beyond the fourth wall for it to do so, and despite that not once did I find an accumulation of moisture in my eyes -- despite all that, "Lincoln" is a film of great and spectacular stature.

If his last several films are any indication, Steven Spielberg appears to have found himself again. An artist of unbridled optimism and possessing an unabashed contempt for cynicism, Spielberg, like many, lost himself and his art after the devastating events of 9/11. But "Lincoln" is the latest in what I hope can be seen as a pattern -- a pattern pointing to the return of the sorts of films that are unapologetic in their patriotism, poignance and power.

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