December 24, 2025
by Carla Hay
Directed by Nicholas Hytner
Culture Representation: Taking place in 1916, in Ramsden, England, the dramatic film “The Choral” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few black people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.
Culture Clash: After the Choral Society in Ramsden loses several members (including its choir master) to military service, another choir master reluctantly takes over, and he recruits several new members who otherwise wouldn’t have been considered.
Culture Audience: “The Choral” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star Ralph Fiennes and dramas about choirs who need to be trained under a new leader.
Dull and superficial, “The Choral” is a series of anecdotal scenes instead of a cohesive story about a revamped choir in 1916 England. This drama has underdeveloped characters with cliché and cardboard personalities. By the end of the film, you will hardly learn anything about the main characters except who is pursuing whom in a few romantic relationships among the young people.
Directed by Nicholas Hytner (who is one of the movie’s producers) and written by Alan Bennett, “The Choral” had its world premiere at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival. The movie screened at other festivals in 2025, including the BFI London Film Festival and AFI Fest. The movie takes place in 1916, in the small village of Ramsden, England. “The Choral” was filmed on location in England, at Saltaire Village, West Yorkshire and Versa Leeds Studios.
“The Choral” follows many of typical formulas in yet another movie about a cranky/stern choir director who has a limited time to train a singing group to be good enough for an upcoming competition or big performance. In this movie, the singing group is the Choral Society, a group of men and women who have recently lost several members (including the Choral Society’s choir master) to military service during World War I. Before the new choir master takes over in “The Choral,” the movie rushes through some scenes that show some of the people who are impacted by these changes in the Choral Society.
“The Choral” begins by showing two best friends in their late teens named Ellis (played by Taylor Uttley) and Lofty (played by Oliver Briscombe), who have the unpleasant job of delivering telegrams informing military families that one of their loved ones died in the war. Ellis is very flippant about this serious and depressing job. After they deliver a telegram to a weeping young woman (played by Fiona Morgan) with the news that her brother has died in the war, Ellis comments to Lofty as they walk away that Lofty could’ve used the opportunity to make romantic moves on the woman. “You could’ve gotten in there, Lofty,” Ellis smirks. “Grief. It’s an opportunity.”
Ellis is a one-note character who sees almost every moment of his life as an opportunity to flirt with women, chase women, or make comments on whether or not he thinks a woman’s physical appearance is attractive enough for him. It might be the movie’s attempt to show Ellis as a carefree ladies’ man, but Ellis just comes across as a self-absorbed creep. Lofty is a passive and somewhat generic character whose biggest worry is that he will still be a virgin when he turns 18 years old.
Ellis and Lofty have two other close friends (who are about the same age) in their social circle. Mitch (played by Shaun Thomas) is an earnest go-getter. Clyde (played by Jacob Dudman) is a military soldier who is missing in action in the beginning of the movie. The movie’s trailer and other marketing materials already reveal that Clyde shows up later, when he is discharged from the military for reasons that are shown in the movie.
Meanwhile, four decision makers for the Choral Society have to decide who will replace the people who’ve left the Choral Society because of military service. Bernard Duxbury (played by Roger Allam) is an alderman who sees himself as the leader of the decision makers. The other three decision makers are undertaker Herbert Trickett (played by Allun Armstrong), photographer Joe Fytton (played by Mark Addy) and Reverend Woodhead (played by Ron Cook), who have their opinions but find it difficult to persuade stubborn Bernard to change his mind on certain things.
An early scene in the movie shows Bernard and Herbert asking Ellis and Lofty to audition for the Choral Society. Later, during a meeting, the four decision makers lament the fact that Gilbert Pollard (played by Thomas Howes), the Choral Society’s previous choir master, left for military service because he volunteered and was not conscripted. After some discussion, the name Dr. Henry Guthrie is mentioned as a possible replacement for Gilbert.
Dr. Henry Guthrie (played by Ralph Fiennes), a bachelor with no children, is a talented musician who has recently returned to his native England after living several years in Germany. At the moment, he is working as a pianist at the Queens Hotel, which is not too far away from Ramsden. Henry is somewhat mysterious. Considering the tense relations between Germany and the United Kingdom during World War I, some people in the community are suspicious about Henry’s long residency in Germany and sudden return to England.
Is Henry a spy? A secret political supporter of the German government? “The Choral” hints that it could have this intrigue, but ultimately “The Choral” just makes Henry an inscrutable and often-grumpy character who reluctantly accepts the offer to become the Choral Society’s new choir master. Henry takes the job on the condition that Henry will get to work with his pianist friend Robert Horner (played by Robert Emms), even though Bernard says that Robert’s job with the choir will be an unpaid position.
“The Choral” then shows a very boring series of auditions that result in new members of the Choral Society. Ellis and Lofty are among those who make the cut. So does Bella Holmes (played by Emily Fairn), a young woman who had been dating Clyde before he went off to war. Bella is no longer interested in Clyde but doesn’t want to tell a lot of people that while he is still missing in action. After Clyde is found and is discharged from the military, he returns to Ramsden and joins the Choral Society.
Clyde finds out that Ellis has been courting Bella, who is mutually attracted to Ellis. “The Choral” wastes an opportunity to show Clyde as a well-rounded person who is dealing with the aftermath of war, including long-term physical and mental effects. Instead, “The Choral” makes him somewhat of a token disabled veteran (he lost his right arm during the war) who accepts Bella wanting to move on from Clyde so she can date Ellis, as long as Bella can still give Clyde the occasional hand job. That is literally the gist of Clyde’s story arc in “The Choral.”
Another new addition to the Choral Society is Mary Lockwood (played by Amara Okereke), a prim and proper Salvation Army worker. From the first few moments that Mary is on screen, it’s obvious she will be the star singer of the choir. During her audition, Mary gets wary reactions from longtime choir members Miss Muschamp (played by Carolyn Pickles) and Mrs. Pemberton (played by Angela Curran), whose only purpose in the movie is to play stereotypical uptight elderly women who feel threatened by someone who’s younger and more talented.
The Choral Society is preparing to perform songs from the oratorio “The Dream of Gerontius,” written by Sir Edward Elgar (played by Simon Russell Beale), who is very picky about who gets to perform this oratorio and how it’s performed, because it’s widely considered to be his masterpiece. The Choral Society is under pressure to do a performance that would make Sir Edward proud. Yawn.
In between monotonous rehearsal scenes, where choir master Henry does his expected scolding and scowling, there’s some very uninteresting drama that is only shown on a surface level. Mitch wants to date virginal Mary, who is afraid of dating anyone and wants to focus on her work. Robert is a closeted gay man at who might or might not be secretly in love with Henry.
“The Dream of Gerontius” is about a dead elderly man’s soul on a journey of death. In a community devastated by war deaths, this oratorio takes on particular significance. But you wouldn’t know it from the way this movie treats grief on a surface level.
Bernard had a son who died in the war. Bernard’s unnamed wife (played by Eunice Roberts) is briefly seen at their home as someone who is dressed entirely in black and who spends time sitting around and staring into space. Bernard tells her in an exasperated voice: “This house can’t become a mausoleum.” She replies, “You’re free to live entirely as you please, Bernard.” That’s the extent of which the movie addresses any grief in Bernard’s family.
A character named Mrs. Bishop (played by played by Lindsey Marshal) is a widow whose husband died in the war. Chronic flirt Ellis constantly eggs on Lofty to get some sexual action from Mrs. Bishop. In Ellis’ mind, Mrs. Bishop must be a horny widow who would welcome the chance to have a fling with a good-looking young man who wants to lose his virginity. The movie panders to this notion and makes Mrs. Bishop merely a prop who’s waiting around for male attention that’s shallow and fleeting.
“The Choral” is utterly phony when it comes to how it depicts race relations. Mary is black in a community where less than 1% of the population is black, but not once is her race mentioned in this nearly all-white community. Not once does anyone—not even Mary’s unnamed mother (played by Cecilia Noble), who has a scene talking to Mitch about his romantic interest in Mary—ask Mitch if he’s prepared for any backlash to having an interracial relationship.
Although it would be nice to think that this small village in 1916 England is so progressive that it’s a color-blind society where no one talks about different races, this type of community is an “only in a fictional movie” community for the time and place that it’s supposed to depict. Social class differences are barely acknowledged in “The Choral,” during a time when working-class men are disproportionately conscripted to war combat because they don’t have the resources to get out of this type of military service, compared to rich men. And the movie has a very trite depiction of what it must have been like for a gay man like Robert to live in this time and place.
As for the music and singing in “The Choral,” they are not very impressive and can be downright grating. “The Angel’s Farewell” is the big song performed in the movie’s climax. But you’d be hard-pressed to find a majority of people who see “The Choral” who will remember key components to this song. Fiennes and many of “The Choral” cast members are talented, but there’s only so much they can do when they are given two-dimensional characters to play. Instead of “The Choral,” this movie should be titled “The Bore All.”
Sony Pictures Classics will release “The Choral” in select U.S. cinemas on December 25, 2025. The movie was released in the United Kingdom on November 7, 2025.
