Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on April 2013

Not up for a History Channel biopic? Relax. This one-month window on the life of the 16th president is all you really need to know. It plays more like a political thriller, focusing on the last weeks of the Civil War, as Lincoln wheels, deals and cajoles to scare up enough House votes to pass the 13th amendment before the conflict ends and he loses the war powers that enabled him to make the Emancipation Proclamation. The hard central question is whether he should prolong the horrific war if it means abolishing slavery once and for all. A magnetic Daniel Day-Lewis again demonstrates why he’s the best actor working today. His intimate and sensitive performance, delivered in Lincoln’s reedy drawl and peppered with his salty homespun wit, won him an unprecedented third Best-Actor Oscar. It’s quite astounding, really. He is ably supported by Sally Field as his unstable wife Mary, David Strathairn as Secretary of State Seward and a fiery Tommy Lee Jones as the rabid abolitionist Thaddeus Stevens. American or not, go see this wonderfully acted, impeccably directed (by Steven Spielberg) and sharply written (by Tony Kushner) democratic masterpiece.