It doesn't get into his salvation story. It is actually a slice of his life during maybe the last year or thereabouts. It shows him and the push to pass the 13th amendment, ending slavery, and shows the ultimate surrender of the Confederacy. It shows the death & destruction of our terrible civil War and the heavy burden he bore as he walked his destiny, his calling to this..."for such a time....".... engaging in politics, visiting wounded soldiers, meeting with widows and orphans.
So though there are references to his hardscrabble upbringing, severe difficulties in relations with his father, and his learning from books and not in school, there is no real foundation revealed for the values he so deeply and tragically held through all this. And not just through the nation's difficulties and tragedies, but his own..... his mentally unstable wife, the loss of their eldest son, relationship difficulties with his middle son, and his youngest son's "strangeness".
What Scripture he quotes is all Old Testament. Apparently he was a great storyteller, always with a point. He had a sense of humor, and he loved his family, but deeply took his responsibilities for the divided nation and its ultimate destiny very seriously. And he was honest; though he "played" politics, he refused to give or take bribes or do things that were less than honorable.
So I think it will win some Awards for sure. Daniel Day-Lewis really "took on" Lincoln, as did Sally Field as Molly. The entire cast was superb. We always hope for a really good movie when we go and especially when it's a new movie and at the "better" theatres and we pay full price!
And the film kept selling out, repeatedly, even the later shows were already full we heard as we were leaving the theatre, and today's shows were filling up.
Despite our most recent election where though it was close, it showed our nation's character flaws ever deepening, when the majority voted for a man known for his socialist leanings, a direction not envisioned, worked through, fought & died for, but abhorrent to our God, and so should be to us who have inherited this and should leave at least as good a legacy and we received, we want a hero, an honest man with God-given principles unafraid to live them and push for them, even when many are against him, and against those principles. Right is right and wrong is wrong, and we mere humans cannot change this. We keep trying but it cannot be done. God created us and He created right and wrong; He is the Judge, the Author, the Finisher. We have choices and there are always consequences.
For Lincoln it was death by assassination. For this nation, a period of long and difficult, sometimes bloody Reconstruction. The South has never been the same. Sad but true, they lost their way of life and found it hard to recognize themselves. But their way of life was built on an unrighteous lie, that of slavery, based on race! And the nation continued on, towards its Manifest Destiny, which as we know, was frequently not a righteous process, and we still bear consequences for that, and for every choice we make, nationally, and individually.
So in conclusion..... if you can, go see this movie for yourself. Participate, briefly, in this man's life. LINCOLN.
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