Ralph Fiennes’ new film The Choral had its world premiere Friday at the Toronto International Film Festival and met with a caustic review in the New York Post that described the WWI drama as uneven and poorly executed.
The 113-minute film, directed by Nicholas Hytner and written by Alan Bennett, follows Dr. Guthrie, a brilliant chorus master played by Fiennes, who returns to a small English village after years abroad in Germany. The character’s continental associations and private life — the film depicts him as a gay man with a lover serving in the German navy — become sources of suspicion in a community whose sons are fighting on the front lines.
In its review of the TIFF screening, the New York Post criticized the film’s tone and execution, saying the picture aimed for a moving story of communal healing through music but instead delivered what it called "screeching discord." The review said much of the friction in The Choral was not limited to story elements — such as class tensions, wartime anxieties and the chorus master’s secrecy — but arose from a mismatch between the filmmakers’ intentions and the film’s execution.
Critics singled to the Post out a sense of familiarity in the film’s approach, writing that viewers could recognize director Hytner and writer Bennett’s aims — an emphasis on working-class community, the redemptive power of song and quiet interpersonal revelations — and that the result felt closer to a serialized British television drama than to a tightly crafted feature. The reviewer wrote that although the story contains moments intended to be compassionate and unifying, those moments were undercut by muddled dramatic choices and uneven performances among the ensemble.
The Choral is positioned as a follow-up project for Fiennes after his role in Conclave. At TIFF, the film was presented amid a broad slate of premieres and a competitive festival environment in which early reviews often shape industry and audience expectations. The Post’s appraisal joined other early responses that emphasized both the film’s thematic ambitions and the difficulties some viewers found in its pacing and tonal balance.
Representatives for the film and for TIFF did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Festival premieres sometimes prompt revised assessments as films reach wider critics and public audiences; The Choral is expected to continue its festival run and will be evaluated further as it receives additional screenings and distribution plans are announced.
The film’s creative team includes Hytner, a director with extensive experience in British theater and film, and Bennett, a playwright and screenwriter known for character-driven work. The Choral’s focus on music and community situates it within a familiar British storytelling tradition, even as early reviews underscore the challenges of translating that tradition to an emotionally cohesive feature.
At the Toronto festival, the film joined other period dramas and character studies that drew attention for their handling of history, identity and communal bonds. The New York Post review framed The Choral as a film whose good intentions were evident but whose execution left some viewers wanting a clearer tonal and dramatic throughline.