★★★★☆

Siegfried Sassoon goes under the spotlight in this elegant and unconventional biopic from the great Terence Davies, which features striking work from Scotland’s Jack Lowden as England’s First World War poet. It’s an admirable endeavour which marries Sassoon’s poetry and principled words with archive combat footage while painting a colourful, bitchy picture of the era’s arts scene.

At first the film frustrates with the brevity of its dramatic sequences. But things open up when Sassoon becomes disillusioned with the war he has been awarded a Military Cross for fighting, and is sent to a Scottish hospital for the treatment of nervous disorders. There, he discusses his stance with a sympathetic doctor (played by Ben Daniels) who also shares his attraction towards men, and forms a strong bond with fellow poet Wilfred Owen (Matthew Tennyson).

Simon Russell Beale’s Robbie Ross is a constant companion with whom Sassoon delivers scathing verdicts on the artistic efforts of friends and acquaintances. Later, there’s an acrimonious affair with wildly popular entertainer Ivor Novello (Jeremy Irvine), who Siegfried’s mother Theresa (Geraldine James) dubs ‘amusing but unpleasant’. Writer-director Davies highlights Sassoon’s tortured soul and rebellious spirit in what are contrastingly very carefully staged scenes. This is the performance that could make Lowden a star; he captures the poet in all his infuriation, anxiety and pride in a fittingly intelligent portrayal, while other leading lights of the time are vividly depicted.

Environments merge through dissolves, as Sassoon’s memories of battlefields and field hospitals take over, and the glitz and glamour of his London lifestyle recedes into the background, showing a lingering impact of war. And the melancholy young man eventually gives way to a bitter older version (played forcefully by Peter Capaldi) in a film that fashions Sassoon’s life into the richest of tapestries.

Out now in cinemas.