Benediction (2021) review

Davies gives his own take on the experiences of British soldier and poet Siegfried Sassoon: as an older gentleman (played by Peter Capaldi) he contemplates converting to Catholicism (in the hopes for eternal life), while as a younger man (Jack Lowden) he fights on the Western Front and then protests the way the war is being handled, gets sent to Craiglockhart War Hospital (for "neurasthenia"), befriends fellow poet Wilfred Owen (Matthew Tennyson) and then has a series of affairs with various men, including singer/actor Ivor Novello (Jeremy Irvine) and socialite Stephen Tennant (Calam Lynch).  It starts off (and ends) quite wonderfully, combining stock WWI footage and its subject's poems - a trademark of the director - but then turns into a tedious lover's spat for a bulk of the running time, with Sassoon - even in his later years - harboring a deep grudge against Tennant.  I feel tremendous pity for the women these "bright young things" decided to "settle down with" - surely they had no idea that the men they spent their life with didn't truly love them the way they did their former male partners (this point isn't addressed, and I doubt whether Davies cares all that much).  It's mostly The Boys in the Band only without the wit and cleverness ... and then the ending is yet another Call Me By Your Name reference.