'Grace' skillfully tells slavery foe's struggle

Robert Denerstein, Rocky Mountain News

Published February 23, 2007 at midnight

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When director Michael Apted was in town for November's Starz Denver International Film Festival, he talked about how he approached the story of William Wilberforce. Rather than turn his movie into a bio-pic that celebrated his wide-ranging accomplishments and abiding faith, Apted narrowed his focus, concentrating on Wilberforce's 23-year struggle in Britain's House of Commons to abolish slavery.

It was a wise decision from Apted, whose filmography includes such movies as Coal Miner's Daughter and Gorillas in the Mist.

In building his movie around a single issue, Apted succeeds in capturing a rough-and-tumble side to politics that never feels too far removed from our own day. Apted meticulously shows how various economic interests (and the personalities that represented them) clashed over slavery. And in the case of Wilberforce, he poses a provocative question: Can a person of faith find a meaningful place in the bustle and turmoil of the world?

Apted begins the picture in 1797. At this point, a 34-year-old Wilberforce has grown tired of fighting a battle that appeared beyond victory. Addicted to profits from the sugar trade, Britain seemed unmovable on the subject of slavery. The movie then takes us back through Wilberforce's early struggles.

The main roles in Apted's movie have not gone to actors whose résumés might sink the average sailing ship. Ioan Gruffud (The Fantastic Four) makes a credible Wilberforce, a man for whom faith involves struggle - not in terms of belief but in terms of how best to put belief into action. Romola Garai portrays Barbara Spooner, the woman who fell for Wilberforce and helped him continue his battle. Once the flashbacks catch up with the opening scenes, the story moves toward its stirring conclusion.

Benedict Cumberbatch, another actor not much seen by U.S. audiences, portrays Wilberforce's pragmatic friend William Pitt, who became prime minister at the shockingly young age of 24 and who sometimes tried Wilberforce's patience.

For additional gravitas, Apted brings on a variety of British heavyweights. Michael Gambon plays the imperious Lord Charles Fox, an MP who ultimately sided with Wilberforce's movement. Ciaran Hinds plays the recalcitrant, pro-slavery Lord Tarleton, and Toby Jones - who appeared as Truman Capote in last year's Infamous - portrays the Duke of Clarence, a prig and supporter of slavery.

Perhaps because he was not operating with a gargantuan budget, Apted doesn't travel to the Caribbean or take us aboard slave ships. That makes sense thematically, as well. For the average Londoner, slavery was something that was happening elsewhere.

It thus falls to Albert Finney to convey the torments that slavery inflicted on some of those who ran the trade. Finney gives a small but lacerating performance as a sea captain who once profited from the slave trade, but who since has become a preacher. Finney's John Newton wrote the hymn that gives the movie its title, a musical act of awakening, contrition and hope.

When I first saw Amazing Grace at November's film festival, I thought it admirable, though perhaps overly earnest. At times, it can seem as if the characters become little more than mouthpieces for various positions. Maybe that's inevitable with a film that spends so much time moving through the House of Commons.

A second viewing tempered my view. Amazing Grace convincingly demonstrates that politics probably hasn't changed much since Wilberforce's time. Interests clash and men of principle struggle to find a place in a process that moves slowly enough to test anyone's faith. The movie makes clear the agony involved in attempting to bring about change.

Amazing Grace, by the way, is being released to coincide with the bicentennial of the bill that effectively undermined the British slave trade.

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