Following 2016’s A Quiet Passion, British director Terence Davies is finally returning this year with Benediction. Capturing the life of World War I poet Siegfried Sassoon, starring Jack Lowden, he was known for his epic, satirical poems detailing trench warfare and the horrors of a war in which he fought bravely but spoke out against. He was also a closeted gay man in Britain, where those in power considered his sexual identity a crime. Now set for a June 3 theatrical release from Roadside Attractions, the new U.S. trailer has landed for the TIFF selection.
C.J. Prince said in his review, “Time is everything in a Terence Davies film. In Benediction, his biopic about English poet Siegfried Sassoon (Jack Lowden), he eventually covers his subject’s marriage to Hester Gatty (Kate Phillips). There’s a shot of the couple standing still, facing the camera as they pose for a wedding photo (a shot that tends to pop up throughout the director’s filmography). The camera flashes, we see the black-and-white photo, and then a fade transitions us to the future, where it rests on their bedside while Hester looks at their newborn child. The sequence is an encapsulation of what Davies does best: observing life with one’s head facing backwards, the cumulative weight of the past bearing down on every moment of the present.”
See the trailer and poster below.
![](https://thefilmstage.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/BENEDICTION_POSTER_72DPI_WEB_FIN-1-810x1200.jpg)
Benediction opens on June 3.