Lincoln Movie Review and Trailer: Spielberg Film Proves History Repeats Itself

There won't be enough Academy Awards for Lincoln, the biographical war drama directed and produced by Steven Spielberg — starring Daniel Day-Lewis as United States President Abraham Lincoln, Sally Field as Mary Todd Lincoln, Tommy Lee Jones as Republican Congressional leader Thaddeus Stevens, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Robert Todd Lincoln.   

The film, based on Doris Kearns Goodwin's biography of Lincoln, Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln, covers the final four months of The Civil War (as well the last days of the man who abolished slavery while holding the United States of America together).  

Not only is the film beautifully made and masterly acted, Spielberg's Lincoln also fills a gap in U.S. cinema as -- unlike the French, who have mastered their historical filmmaking --Americans lacked a classic and epic production dedicated to revisit arguably the Union's most critical historical event so far. 

And what made the movie even more amazing is how well it captures the parallels between the Lincoln and the Obama eras. Though the former was a Republican and the latter is a Democrat, Lincoln and Obama have presided over deeply politically divided and polarized eras where both parties have had to come together to address policy issues related to pivotal social changes. In the case of Lincoln, the POTUS' task — as masterly recreated by both Spielberg and Day-Lewis — was to pass the historic Thirteen Amendment. In the case of Obama, his legacy may well end up being the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) and his endorsement of Marriage Equality.